


No Dominion

by Imogen_Penn



Series: All the Dead Lie Down [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Both the Zombies, F/M, and this fiC, back from the dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-01 00:13:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2752364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imogen_Penn/pseuds/Imogen_Penn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the end of all things, it was easy to believe that Sanctuary and survival was all that was left of the world. Things are never so simple.</p><p>Follow up to All the Dead Lie Down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. They Shall Rise Again

**Author's Note:**

> So, I realise I have kind of faded away from fandom. Combo of insane life busy-ness and writers block. But ages ago I had recieved an anon prompt asking to check in with Steve and Darcy in the post apocalypse, and it gave me a plot bunny. A little while ago, I was going through old scribblings, found the half finished plot bunny, and it turned into a full fledged plot rabbit. So now there is this thing. A one shot look a few years down the road post All the Dead Lie Down. Hope you like it!
> 
> ETA: soooo, you guys and your comments and your kudos got me all riled up. I've written an outline, lord help me. You just remember...you asked for it :p

Though they go mad they shall be sane,  
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;  
Though lovers be lost love shall not;  
And death shall have no dominion.

-Death Shall Have No Dominion (Dylan Thomas)

 

"Go! Go! Go!" Darcy shouted, moving at a dead run back towards where her team was crouched out of sight behind a slab of fallen concrete.

She could hear the rising wail of the death net far too loudly in her ear.

Goddam biters ruining carefully laid plans.

The death net was supposed to be set off remotely at a distance.

The downside of their best weapon against the walking dead was that they were too fragile, being essentially jerry-rigged scatter bombs, to be dropped. They required gentle handling and careful placement to be at their most effective. Which meant they required a living breathing human being to set them and then get out.

Problem was, you really wanted to set them in a pretty dense red zone. The death nets were labour intensive devices and they didn't exactly have an assembly line to churn them out, so it was always best to put them in the middle of as big a crowd of the dead as you could manage. That meant that every so often, the damn corpses would catch wind of you sooner than you would have preferred.

Which is why Darcy was currently running flat out away from a growing crowd of the dead and a bomb that was going to go off way too close for comfort.

The three people behind the slab were up and running almost before she was yelling. They made it into a nearby building with reasonably solid walls just in time, hitting the floor with their hands over their heads as the death net went off with a whistling sort of bang.

The death nets had been a real breakthrough. Ever since Bruce had been able to synthesise Thanatos from Steve's blood, taking down one of the dead got a lot easier. A dart of that stuff anywhere on their grotesque rotting bodies would take it out.

Probably more importantly, they weren't worried about the outbreaks anymore. Every single person in sanctuary had regular inoculations coursing through their blood. The virus would still kill you if you got bit, but there was a comfort to knowing that you wouldn't come back and take out your family and what was possibly the only remaining pocket of humanity left.

Still, when you thought about it, there had been about 7 billion people on earth when the virus hit. If Sanctuary was all that was left, it was going to take generations before the 732 people they had could reclaim the earth going one dead body at a time.

Bruce had immediately started working on ideas to make Thanatos more efficient. Katy, now one of the key members of the science team, had come up with a couple of blood born options that worked pretty well.

All over the west coast of Canada and down into the states were roaming animals implanted with two sneaky little engineered proteins, one that pumped out a mix of pheromones and keytones that made a stray dog or cat smell enough like a human that a zombie would take a bite, and one that pumped out Thanatos.

You might get five or six out of an animal if you were lucky. And, although Darcy always felt a bit ambivalent about it, it was cutting through the rampant and vicious population of feral pets that had started taking over in the suburbs.

A gruesomely aerosolized spray of Thanatos bonded to human platelets also did a pretty good job. The problem was the dead didn't inhale, so you could spray 100 of them, and maybe 30 would go down because they had their mouths open or an open would that would pick up enough of it. There were people thinning out the edge of the southwest herd this way every day.

But this was a numbers game. And anything that didn't reliably take out every single one of the things around you created dangerous liabilities for their people.

People were in pretty short supply these days.

Bruce's other major concern, voiced in alarmingly clinical terms at a public hall, was that we needed to keep sufficient numbers for repopulation without creating what sounded like very scary genetic consequences.

Enter the death net.

Darcy thought it was a real tick in the pro violent video games column. She remembered when the major concern of a given suburban mom would be worrying about what damage violent first person shooter games were doing to her precious little baby. However, it was a nine year old kid who had come to Sanctuary with his family from a town nearby that had suggested to his Dad, former firefighter, now a member of the perimeter team, that it would be really cool to see what would happen if you dropped a scatter bomb on a herd.

There was no shortage of scrap metal around these days. The base structure of the thing was a bomb full of metal filings and Thanatos. Oh, to be sure, there was a lot of carefully engineers ballistics to it, but at a basic level, it was pretty simple.

Darcy had been there to see the first test. One of the perimeter teams had let a small crowd of the dead penetrate the blue zone. They led about 100 or so of the things into a wide expanse of open field. She had been watching through binoculars from a hill about a mile away as the device, careful prepared and remotely operated, was triggered.

The wail of the siren immediately had every single one of the zombies moving closer. Finding no food, they left the device alone, but they had created a tight pack around it.

And then it went off.

From a distance, it looked a bit like a smoke ring. A puff of white moved out from the device, travelling far past the crowd of zombies. And then every single one of the things fell as if they were puppets with the strings cut.

It was outrageously successful.

After some more tinkering, those things would take out every single zombie for 100 meters. Maybe a bit less if the group was really tightly packed. But now they could reliably take out thousands at a time, clearing out whole towns without any one of their people getting within 10 yards of a zombie. Pretty soon, they would be cleared right out to the southwest herd to the south. They had more of a stretch across to the where the northern herd had piled up just west of the great lakes, but they were getting there.

There was a piercing whine and the crash of broken glass as the outer edge of the net crashed into their building. The death nets might have been geared at taking out zombies, but a waves of metal shrapnel travelling at a thousand meters per second would do a pretty good job of killing a human too.

In the silence that followed, she lifted her head and looked around. "Everybody good?" she asked, getting to her feet and brushing glass shards out of her hair.

"Whhoooooeeee!" came the sharp call of Vince, a loveable red neck who had taken to dart guns and death nets over shot guns and ATVs with alacrity, "almost thought we were gonna get some shots in," he said, helping a younger woman named Grace to her feet beside him. "Shoulda known you'd pull some fool stunt like setting off the net with your bare hands, Lewis."

She grinned at him, "seemed like a good idea at the time."

"You always say that," Jack was brushing off his pants beside her, "and then you always remember five seconds later that you're gonna have to go back and report the whole thing to Steve."

Darcy winced. "Aw crap, I _do_ always forget about that part." She shoved Jack good naturedly.

The two and a half years that they'd been living at Sanctuary had changed Jack in a lot of ways. Most obviously, he had gone from a lanky seventeen year old boy to a solidly built man of 20. She had worried enough to keep her up for a week when he signed on for combat, but he wasn't the angry and reckless teenager she had met in the city so long ago anymore, and he had more field experience that most.

Didn't mean she didn't keep him on her team as often as she could, which he accepted with equanimity and a reassuring squeeze of her hand the first time they left the blue zone together.

"Come on, " she said cheerfully, "Let’s go sweep the streets for any stragglers and then get out of here."

+

+

+

Jack had only been half joking about the inevitable debrief with Steve. She did feel mildly concerned as to what his reaction would be when they reported in on their mission, enough to hope that maybe Hill would be there instead.

Steve and Darcy didn't often go out in the field together anymore. It had been a very conscious decision on the part of both them and the command team. She and Steve as a team were now reserved for very particular types of missions, the kind where the people who didn't have the same kind of training and experience couldn't be trusted to handle it. On a very practical level, Sanctuary couldn't afford to risk both of them on a routine mission. Even though Steve would probably survive a bite if it happened again, there was no surviving being caught in a crowd of them with no way out.

While she missed having Steve beside her out there, they had agreed without any protest. The youngest of their little band of kids was 12 now, but Darcy still woke up in a sweat at the thought of what would happen to them if she and Steve were gone.

When she walked into command centre to debrief, all of Steve, Hill, Nat, Clint and other members of the central command staff were sitting there. She paused, blinking. This was highly unusual.

"Really?" she asked, trying to keep a level tone as she sat down, "It wasn't that big of a risk."

"I'm going to leave the guilt trip about manually discharging a death net to Steve," said Hill with a vaguely amused grin. "Something more important has come up."

Darcy’s attention immediately locked on the map displayed on one long wall of command. Instead of the usual field of vision, stretching down the coast to the southern US and across to the great lakes, the full world map was visible, their location marked by a blue point, and several other blue points blinking across the map, one in the far north on Baffin island, two or three across the Southern states, one in Mexico, two in south America, and a few more across Europe and Asia.

"We've been working on our transmission systems," said Hill. "Refurbished phone lines and short wave radio works well enough up and down the coast, but if we want to start really increasing our range, we need to go wireless."

"Right," said Darcy, "I thought that's why we went through that painful experience of trucking those two enormous dishes out here to see if we could get access to whatever satellites are still in orbit."

"We did," said Hill, "and it worked."

Darcy sat up a little straighter.

"We are still working on getting transmitting functions up and running," she went on, "the coding and security involved is frankly really tough, and we don't have anyone here who was ever really an expert. So there's a learning curve going on. What we did get," she almost sounded jumpy with excitement, "is some basic receiving functions. What it told us, right off the bat, is there are locations all over the globe spitting out way to much short wave signal to be accidental. There are people out there."

Darcy felt a thrill zing up her spine, she immediately looked over to Steve, who she could tell was just itching to say something.

It looked like it was maybe something not all that pleasant.

"We've been working on trying to get in touch on short wave radio, but without functioning towers, we haven't been able to pick up even the closest one, here" she pointed at the blue dot that looked to be right at the north east of Texas. "So we thought we should make a social call."

"I assume," said Darcy dryly, "by the fact that you've gathered the entire command staff, you are well aware of the likelihood that we’d be met with less than open arms?"

"The thought had occurred to us," said Hill, "So we thought we'd send our most recognisable away team."

Darcy looked sharply over at Steve again, who gave her a look that clearly said “I have already yelled about this, there is no point in more yelling.”

"How do you feel about being the official ambassador of human civilization north of the Mason Dixon," finished Hill with a grin.

+

+

+

"So," she said, when they finally got out of command and back to their somewhat cramped but homey room, "on a scale of 1 to 10..."

But she was cut off by Steve's big hands cupping her face, his tall frame crowding her back against the closed door, "in a minute," he murmured, before lowering his mouth to hers, the long line of him pressing against her as he kissed her fiercely, his tongue relentless in her mouth as she somewhat helplessly clutched at his shoulders.

"Detonating a death net by hand, Darce?" he finally said, short of breath as he pulled away, "really?"

"How did you even...." she started.

"I happened to be walking by communications while you were out..." he started in a tone that was fooling absolutely no one.

"Ah, so it was just coincidental eavesdropping on my op?" she raised an eyebrow at him, but she was feeling that shaky urgency to be close to him that she always felt when one or both of them was doing something risky, and she tucked her fingers under the waist of his pants to hold him close and feel the heat of his skin under her hands.

"Not coincidental," he admitted with a wry grin, "maybe I just find it hard to focus on much when you’re out running around with the walking dead."

"Tell me you wouldn't have done the same thing," she said, looking up at him earnestly. "Tell me you wouldn't have done the same thing to do what you went out for rather than waste the trip and a net."

He sighed, letting his forehead fall against hers, "I would have done the same thing."

Darcy often mused on the way the post-apocalyptic relationship rules were developing. There were a lot of couples at the Sanctuary. Some came that way, some paired up over the last few years. Some were miserable together, some were incredibly happy, most were somewhere in the middle, but all of them faced leaving their significant other behind (or being left) to go out and face the very dangerous world outside.

They didn't have the luxury of staying locked up safe indoors, not if they wanted to protect themselves from the herd, start reclaiming land. Every grown adult took shifts, even if it was just patrolling the blue zone.

It meant that you had to learn to treat your partner with respect, trust them, not just as a partner, but as a soldier. Darcy and Steve had learned that earlier than most, and had that trust and respect tested more often than most. Steve would never stop wishing that Darcy would take the safest route open to her and Darcy would never stop worrying about the sadness and brittle hardness to Steve that had never left him, even though he had left his time out on the road behind.

It meant that when she asked him his opinion on how she had handled herself, she honestly wanted his answer, and that Steve would answer honestly.

She let herself fall against his chest, curving into him with a shaky sigh. "You wanna talk about this whole ambassador gig?" she said in a muffled voice.

She felt his breath against her head, and then he reluctantly pulled away. "Guess we're gonna have to, since there's no way I'm going that far without you."

"Wouldn't have let you if you tried," she said, squeezing his hand and pulling him to sit next to her on the bed. "It's good news, right? Other people?"

"Of course," he said immediately, "even if they don't want to work together, every single living breathing human out there is a miracle....it's just..."

She waited patiently, as she could see that whatever was going on with him, it wasn’t simple or easy.

"I put it all away," he said finally, "I stopped being Captain America long before I met you, and I spent a really long time comparing myself to what I was before, what I should have been..."

She interrupted him "Steve..."

"I know, I know," he said with a rueful grin, "but you can't deny that I didn't live up to your expectations when we first met. I definitely wasn't living up to my own. I just..." he blew out a breath, "things have been better. Things have been good" he squeezed her hand. "I don't know if I can go back to…the Captain...I just...it doesn’t leave a lot of room for…anything else, I guess.”

"Hey..." she said, finally getting what he was driving towards, and rearranging herself so she straddled his knees, facing him with her hands on his shoulders, “I know who you are. No uniform is going to change that.”

He looked up at her with an uncertain and distant look, "I know you believe that Darce, I do, it's just...it _does_ change things. It _will…_ "

She leaned down to kiss him, stopping him in his tracks.

"Maybe I'll start wearing red spandex," she said, after a long moment, her tone light but her gaze fixed on him, solid. "Get myself an iconic weapon of some kind.”

He smiled reluctantly.

"Listen," she said, settling against him, "the thing is that the world doesn't really need Captain America to fight for them anymore. There's no America. Who the hell knows how national politics are gonna shake down now. Anyone who’s left alive doesn’t need a symbol to keep fighting. What we do need is a familiar face so people don’t shoot first and ask questions later, that’s all."

"You really think so, don't you?" he said, with a sort of wondering look.

"I know so. You think anyone here gives a rats ass that you were Captain America once? They like you because you keep them alive, because you're an excellent leader, because they can see how you good you are for our little band of stray kids."

He kissed her then, sure and certain. And they didn't find they had much to talk about for the rest of the night.

+

+

+

It took a few weeks to plan the trip, clear a path as much as they could through the edges of the southwest herd so they could drive a ways.

It took a solid two weeks to get there, even with the last marks for some hops, and scavenged vehicles for most of the rest. They were planting portable come towers along the way so they could stay in touch with Sanctuary.

Still, Darcy felt like she could have used two more weeks to mentally prepare herself for arriving.

The radio signals were coming from what used to be a suburb of Austin. When they got closer, though, they could see that what may once have been a gated community had been turned into a fortress. Pilings, cars and trucks, all manner of cast off hunks anything heavy, had been cemented together to form an irregular but very thick wall of about 10 meters high.

Darcy couldn’t imaging what it must have taken to build it, and the relief the people inside must have felt when the last section closed in around them.

There was a gate in the front, the road leading up to it clear and open. The minute they stepped onto it, they would be in sight.

Darcy and Steve looked at each other steadily.

"Well," she said finally, "should I ring the bell?"

Steve quirked a comfortingly solid grin at her, "Let’s do it."

He pulled the shield off his back, holding it across his chest as he stepped out onto the road, Darcy following close behind.

They could see people running around at the top of the gate, but when they got closer, it looked as if no one was there.

Darcy and Steve looked at each other, and finally Steve shrugged, turned back to the wall and yelled. "Anybody home?"

Within another few seconds, the gate cracked open and a man stepped out with a wide grin that immediately reassured Darcy. Steve, however, made an odd sort of gasping noise.

"Let me guess," the man at the gate called out as he strode forward, "Everyone you know is trying to kill you?"

"Apparently," Steve shouted up in a strangled voice, "not everyone."

Darcy looked at him in growing understanding, "You are _shitting_ me," she exclaimed, "Is everyone you know somehow experts at surviving the apocalypse."

"Far more of them than I deserve," he said, stunned.

And then the man and the gate ran full tilt into Steve, the two men locking in a tight embrace for a few long moments until Darcy cleared her throat.

"Right," said Steve, taking a step back, "Darcy, meet Sam Wilson."

Sam stuck his hand out to greet her, and Darcy took it sort of dazedly as she processed the information, finally screeching "the motherfucking Falcon?"

"I like her already," said Sam with a grin.

"Sam," said Steve with a wry smile, "meet Darcy Lewis."

“You make a lot better first impression than he did,” she said without thinking as she reached out to shake Sam’s hand.

“Yeah, my second and third impressions are pretty good too,” said Sam with a grin.

“Alright, alright,” said Steve with a roll of his eyes, throwing an arm around Darcy’s shoulders, “you gonna invite us in?”

“Right!” said Sam, turning back and leading them towards the gates, “welcome to the Nest,” he said with an expansive gesture as he led them in.

“Seriously?” asked Darcy with a raised eyebrow.

“Naw,” said Sam with a grin, “I tried to make it happen, but everyone just calls this place Keep.”

 


	2. Negotiations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How can we live like this?  
> We need to wake and find our shelves intact,  
> our children slumbering in their quilts.  
> We need dreams the shape of lakes,  
> with mornings in them thick as fish.  
> Shade us while we cast and hook—  
> but nothing else, nothing else.  
> \- Negotiations with a Volcano (Naomi Shihab Nye, 1952)

When they walked through the gate, which quickly began to roll shut behind them, Darcy and Steve looked at each other with a grim sort of realization.

If this was how others out here were living, then their days of isolation were well and truly over. There were people that needed their help.

It was easy to see that those in the Keep had had it far worse through the collapse of society than those in the Sanctuary. Maybe even worse than Darcy and Steve. Everybody had a second hand feeling to them: repurposed, tough, but never as shiny as new again.

And, Darcy realized with a stomach churning sort of lurch, there were no older people, and there were no children.

At least not any children who had been born before the wall closed in. There were a few infants, or babies barely toddling around, unnaturally somber. But the next youngest children were those who had long been old enough to move quickly and stay quiet on the outside. She saw maybe one or two as young as her youngest; mostly they were well into their teens. Adults now, really, with a hardened look in their eyes.

Sam led them into an old trailer, bars on the windows made from what looked like old kitchen utensils, raised up off the ground, repaired and strengthened with whatever cold be found.

It was clearly where Sam lived. There was a cot in the corner, a few personal items stowed carefully away. But it was also a command center, maps on the wall, weapons stored in racks, a large chipped table taking up most of the space.

“So,” said Sam after a moment, with a weak attempt at humor “how’ve you been?”

Steve, though, spoke grimly “Sam,” he swallowed heavily, “what happened here?”

Sam’s eyes cut away from the table briefly, “We survived,” he said finally, with a solidity that made Darcy understand why the people here smiled at him as he passed, but stepped aside and made way. “The people here were unwilling to give up….or too stupid to give up, maybe.”

“Not stupid,” said Darcy fiercely, “just impressive.” She found she could see his opinion of her change in that moment, something falling into place for him, or maybe something falling away.

“Well,” he said with a good humored sort of shrug, “things are rough all over pony boy.”

Darcy cracked a grin.

“Not so rough as this,” said Steve. “What's left of SHIELD has a place up north. It's a good place; it’s clean, there’s power, water. We could take your people there.”

Darcy looked over to Steve sharply, but Sam jumped in for her.

“Last I looked, the herd was headed that way,” said Sam, “Might be better staying here. Less creature comforts, better odds.”

“You might be right,” said Darcy. “Also, can't hurt to have more than one settlement out there. Banner's already worried about...” she paused with a wry twist to her lips, “breeding populations.”

“No shit!” said Sam, “Banner made it out? Well, I guess he would have, or the other guy at least.”

“We haven't seen much of the other guy,” said Steve, with a curious tilt to his head. “Come to think of it, haven't seen him at all.”

“Look,” said Darcy trying to pull the conversation back on track. “We may have more comforts up north, but we're all still vulnerable. Part of what we've got in our packs is some communications equipment. We should be able to at least put you in touch with the Sanctuary. If you've got anyone here who knows anything about government electronics, we could speed up our work in hacking into the satellites, and get you linked up to our surveillance network. We’ve got a lot of land cleared up there and we’re working our way south.”

“Satellites?” asked Sam in a disbelieving tone.

“Sure,” said Darcy, “there's plenty of them still up there. They'll still be plenty in a decade. Some of them are dropping off, but we have enough time to get some more up there if we start working on it…”

“Why the hell are you putting resources into launching satellites?” Sam interrupted.

Steve looked at Sam with a direct focus that reminded Darcy of when one of the kids was in capital T trouble.

“That’s how we found you Sam. Plenty of other spots giving off too much low band chatter to be anything other than a settlement. There are people out there. There’s a world that needs rebuilding.”

Darcy could see a bit of the glow about Steve, that thing that made him a leader of men, an ideal, a moral standard, creeping across the back of her neck like an omen.

She shook off the odd feeling and turned her focus back to Sam.

Sam sat back in his chair. “Steve, man, you know I'll follow your lead. But the people here, they're not ready to fight a war against the reanimated corpses of everyone they ever knew just to get to the next group of barely surviving wretches out there.”

“It's not as farfetched as it sounds,” Darcy broke in. “We're not talking about some kind of glorious march across the country losing more people than we save. Another thing we have in those bags that we need to tell you about: it's a drug. It's not a cure,” she stopped him immediately at the look in his eyes, “But if a human gets regular inoculations, if they're bit they won’t come back. they'll still die but…”

Sam seemed to immediately grasp the importance of this, the same way that everyone who had been living with this plague did.

“No more outbreaks,” he said, sounded physically winded by the information.

“No more outbreaks,” Darcy confirmed, “We call it Thanatos.”

“And,” added Steve, “a dart of that stuff will take down one of those things no matter where you hit it.”

“Well,” said Sam, “I guess you haven’t exactly been using your life of northern luxury in vain.” There was a sort of energy thrumming under his posture that Darcy recognized. She had seen it in Steve often enough.

“And the death net,” she said, “Basically like a shrapnel grenade saturated with Thanatos. Takes down hundreds at a time. We've been working on thinning the herd from the top. It'd be great if you could help us from the bottom.”

Sam looked like he was holding back a cautious grin. “We could do that,” he said. “May even have someone who can help you with that whole satellite thing, depending on what the hall says.”

“The hall?” asked Steve.

“It’s how we run things around here. Everybody gets a chance to weigh in on big decisions. We can call everyone together tomorrow, let them know what you’ve got and what you want.”

Steve did not look particularly enthused. He raised an eyebrow “maybe you better give us a bit of background on all this.”

Darcy sat back to observe cautiously as Sam began to explain.

“I was flying commercial back from an assignment when everything went to shit,” he started, “on a two hour layover in Austin on my way north. It happened insanely fast. I mean, I’d heard rumors, everyone had. But I had been out in the jungle, you know? Didn’t give it much though until all of a sudden all air travel had been shut down. Didn’t take more’n a few hours after that until the infection hit the airport. I got out with about a dozen people who I was close enough to help,” he paused, swallowing heavily.

Darcy and Steve just looked at him steadily, because they knew exactly what he was feeling. No matter what good you had done, it was never enough to even out the bad.

“A couple of the people with us lived out here in a gated community. There was no way we were going to get clear of the urban sprawl before we ran out of gas, so it seemed as good a target as any. We were lucky, really. Lots of people in the area were the kind who had gone on vacation as soon as the rumors started, lots more really only kept a house down here for a U.S. address, you know the type. Anyways, it was easy to find a few clear houses and hole up.”

“You’d think this close to the city you’d get overrun,” said Steve, his eyes tracking to the map on the wall.

“Like I said,” said Sam with a wan smile, “we got lucky. Best I can think the bulk of the dead herded up and happened to pick a direction that was away from us. It’s not like we had it easy, but we picked up Mac only a few days later. I still had my SHIELD comms on just in case, but got nothing but maydays and garbled data blasts that I didn’t have the code for until Mac. He had lost his team on mission and managed to escape in a quin jet. He was out of gas when he caught my signal. Crashed the thing as safely as he could about a mile off and made his way in. So we had two of us who could handle ourselves at least. We did okay just keeping the civilians indoors and doing the raiding ourselves for a while, then we started to train up the others to go out there.”

“I thought you said there were only a dozen of you?” asked Darcy, “You must have almost 100 people here now.”

“106,” said Sam, “we found a lot of people at first. We started moving out from the gated community and found people holed up just like we were, and we brought them in. At first, when everyone’s supplies were holding up, we found a lot. After about a month though, nothing but the dead.”

“And so you just decided to wall up?”

“Didn’t think we had much of a need at first,” said Sam, “The walls follow where the gates were. We cleared it out in the first few weeks and shored them up some. It never occurred to us that the dead could get passed them. We didn’t know about the herding.”

“Yeah,” said Darcy darkly, remembering her own experience, “I started out in Vancouver. We were holed up there for a few months. Less population density, and lucky like you. I’d never seen a herd before half of the central US was bearing down on us.”

“It’s a bit of a shock,” Sam agreed with a twist of his lips, “we were lucky there too though. A few of us were out raiding an office building a few miles away, and we saw it when we were up high. It was maybe only a few thousand strong, and we had plenty of time. Barricaded everyone in the upper floors of a few houses, stocked all our supplies in there, and kept really quiet. The moment the herd passed out of earshot, we started tearing down houses and anything else we could find and building the walls.”

“I’m not seeing how this leads to group decision making,” said Steve dryly, “don’t they listen to you?”

“It’s easy to get people to work together when they’re scared and you can give them protection,” he explained to them. “These people aren’t SHIELD, they’re not military, and they never spent any time out on the road. They’re civilians with a bit of common sense and a lot of luck. The minute the walls closed up, they lost that common purpose and started feeling safe. Got a lot harder to give orders, so I stopped trying,” said Sam with a shrug. “Didn’t see a need for it either. Outside the walls, or if a herd is swarming, they’ll listen well enough. Otherwise, I thought it was probably time to stop pretending that this was an emergency that was going to pass. We gotta get busy living, right?”

Darcy thought Sam made a hell of a lot of sense, and for the first time reflected on whether the militarized way of life up at the Sanctuary was really the best way to be doing things.

Steve, in what was become a very predictable pattern, did not agree.

“How can you let this place be run this way?”

“What, like a democracy?” Sam asked with a raised eyebrow and a cool look.

Steve let out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. “No, you’re right to get input, and I can understand that it’s hard with civilians, but this still is an emergency Sam, whether they feel it or not.”

“You know, I love that you’re still looking at the big picture man, I really do. But these people? As far as they’re concerned, they’ve won their fight for survival. They’re here, their families are here. Haven’t lost anyone inside these walls for two years. Life is a lot harder than it used to be, but they’re not fighting anymore, and I’m not about to force them to.” Sam ran a hand over the back of his neck, “They’re sensible people Steve. Just tired. You just tell them what you’re looking for, and more’n likely they’ll be willing to make a trade.”

“What do you mean a trade?” asked Darcy with a narrow look.

“Well, you want our help? We could use yours. The biters aren’t the only problem we’ve got down here.”

They looked at him a bit blankly.

“Come on,” he said, “I’ll show you.”

Sam walked them towards a section of wall crumbling into its constituent parts on the far side of the Keep.

“We're not alone down here,” he said.

Darcy could see scorch marks and bullet holes and the clear signs of external attack at the edges of the jagged gap in the Keep’s defenses.

“The zombie war didn't crush the South,” Sam said darkly, “We walk out of here to help you thin the herd, either we won’t be walking back, or they'll be nothing to walk back to.”

+

+

+

“We've got to do something about this,” Steve spoke to her quietly as they lay shoulder to shoulder in a small cot in an old army tent tucked into a corner of the Keep.

“What do you mean?” she asked, knowing the answer already.

“Sam and his people aren't safe here,” he said. “Not when there are others out there trying to take what’s theirs. We should do something.”

“Do something like what?” Darcy said carefully.

“I don't know,” Steve sounded frustrated. “If there was a camp out there, we could...” he stopped, probably reading from her body language that she was upset. “What?” he asked shortly.

“I agree that we should help Sam's people stay safe,” she said stiffly, “Maybe they need more weapons. Maybe they need help shoring up their walls, expanding, getting self-sufficient. But I don't think the answer is going out on a killing spree.”

She knew she had gone too far as Steve turned on his side, his back to her. And really, she had _meant_ to go too far. That feeling that had been creeping up on her ever since she and Steve had walked into this place was clawing at her throat. It felt a lot like fear, and she couldn’t figure out what she was afraid of, except that it had something to do with Steve. She was lashing out. She knew she shouldn’t, but it was too late now.

“You know that's not what I was saying” he said darkly.

“Maybe not,” she said, his avoidance raising her ire as it always did, “but if that's the effect of it all the same, what does it matter what you mean by it?”

There was a long and icy silence.

Darcy blew out her breath in a huff and tried to tell herself she was being ridiculous. She took a moment to try and sort out what her real issue was with what Steve was saying.

She rolled over, putting an arm on his shoulder. “I know that's not what you meant. I know that you want to help. But if we want things to get better, violence can't be the answer, not against other people. At least it can’t be our first choice.”

“It can if they're our enemies,” he said tightly.

She rolled back to the other side of the cot, staring up at the scuffed and dirty canvas of the tent.

“How do we decide that anymore?” she said. “What gives us the right?”

+

+

+

Darcy felt oddly numb, looking out over about 100 people gathered around them on a raised plinth that looked maybe it used to be a band stand in the middle of the Keep.

There was an odd similarity about them, their clothes an almost uniform shade of grey black. Dark colors and tough fabrics worn out and perpetually grubby. Three years of never having a full meal giving all of their faces a dull sort of slackness.

Sam had been right, though. These people were survivors. They were tough looking, untrusting and fierce.

“Morning,” Sam called out stepping to the front of the platform. “As you can see, we’ve got some visitors. All I’m going to tell y’all is that they’re friends of mine, and I trust them. So at least hear them out, alright?”

And with that unnerving introduction, Steve and Darcy stepped up to the front of the plinth.

As they passed Sam, he asked Steve in a low voice, “You gonna be okay with this, man?”

Steve nodded stiffly. “This is your place, Sam, they’re your people. We’ll do it your way.”

Sam, Darcy could tell, knew just as well as she did, that Steve’s compliance was reluctant at best.

So it didn’t make Darcy feel all that comfortable standing up there in front of the hard faces of people who really didn’t want to have to think about anything outside their walls, next to a man who she knew was preparing to ask them to go out there and start losing people again.

They had, however, agreed on one thing.

“First off,” Darcy started, “We have a drug. We call it Thanatos. It’s not a cure, but it keeps anyone who’s bit from coming back and takes down the walkers a lot easier than a bullet. We’re giving it to you. We’ll help you start producing it yourselves, and we don’t want anything in return. You can say no to everything else we’ve got to say to you today, and we’re still going to give you that.”

Steve may be adopting what Darcy considered an…uncompromising stance on how he thought people should be operating, but they could agree that every life that this drug could save should be saved.

The rest of it though…

“What we  _are_  asking for,” said Steve, “is your help. We’ve got some equipment that can help you, some weapons against the dead. We want you to join us and help us fight back. Some of you may have heard of SHIELD. What’s left of it is living up north in the mountains. We can set up communications, provide supplies and training. We’ve got resources, we can give you protection, but everything we have, we’re using to reclaim the world from the dead. And we need the support of every living body we can get.”

There was a long silence.

“What do you mean help?” came a voice from the crowd. A woman of about 40, standing with a teenager of about 15.

“We want you to send people north to start thinning the herd. We’ve developed some weapons that can kill the dead hundreds at a time, we’re not asking you to go out there hand to hand.”

“And what do you mean join you? You guys got a government? We gonna have to start taking orders from a dictator or something?”

Steve looked stunned at that, but Darcy had been expecting it.

“SHIELD is a military operation,” she said, looking at the man who had asked the question. “We run things up there like a military operation. We take orders from the Commander. What we’re trying to do here? Reclaim the land? We’re carrying out a military operation.” She took a breath and forced herself not to look over at Steve.

“To be really honest with you, we haven’t much turned our minds to who we’re going to turn control of things over to when we’re done fighting, or even who gets to decide when we’re done fighting, but what I can tell you is that me and Steve? We can speak for the Sanctuary and we can make a deal with you on whatever terms you or whoever you choose to speak for you can agree to. So we could agree that people from Sanctuary and people from the Keep need to start thinking about how things are going to work when we’re done fighting, or when there’s enough safe space for most of us to stop fighting. And we could agree that every so often, we’ve all got to sit down and talk about whether we should stop fighting.”

There were a lot of heads nodding slowing in the crowd. But Steve was glaring daggers at her.

“You were Captain America, right?” the voice came from a 20 something woman standing near the edge of the crowd.

“I am,” said Steve firmly.

Darcy could feel the bottom drop out of her stomach, and she wasn’t entirely sure why.

It was a surprise, certainly. Steve had put a lot of distance between himself and the Captain, had been reluctant to bring back his public face. But she wasn’t quite sure why a deep and final sense of dread was dragging at her limbs.

There were a few more questions, mostly technical, about the weapons or supplies or communications. But in the end, the Keep agreed, if not enthusiastically, to join the cause.

Well, Darcy thought, many of them seemed to have been willing to join the  _Captain_. It was beginning to become more and more clear to her what the building sense of fear creeping over her was all about.

Steve stopped her with a tug on her arm a few meters away. They were walking towards one of the few structures that had not been pulled down to make the walls, a small brick pump house where Sam suggested they set up communications. He had gone to find a man he thought could help.

His grip was just shy of bruising and he looked furious.

“What the  _hell_ Darcy!” he cut out.

“What?” Darcy spat back, “you got your damned army Steve, what’s the problem?”

“You want us to sign a treaty? Put a bunch of scared, tired civilians in control of whether we need to keep fighting or not?” he asked incredulously.

“Yeah, I do Steve.” She ripped her arm out of his grasp, “Because those scared, tired civilians are  _exactly_  who we are fighting for. I get that you’d prefer to be the second coming of manifest destiny and kill all of the zombies from sea to shining sea, but we’re not recreating America,  _Captain_ ,” she hissed, “we’re trying to figure out how to move forward.”

Oh, Darcy thought as she saw the look on Steve’s face, that’s it. That’s why his adoption of his old title had made her feel such dread.

On the road, before they had even met, Steve had lost his unwavering sense of purpose. The black and white morality of Captain America didn’t work in that kind of a world. She had underestimated, she supposed, how deep that part of him ran. The part of him that would rush head first into danger because it was the right thing to do, the part of him who could not accept any acceptable losses.

The minute he had walked through the gate of the Keep, seen that there were other people out there, people who were clinging to life, he had a purpose again, a reason to pick up the shield, and it wasn’t anything so abstract as truth, justice and the American way. It was  _living_. It was the continuation of the human race.

And he was ready to run straight into the entire undead population of North America to fight for it.

“If I want  _anything,_ ” he said, his jaw ticking with tension, “it’s for you to be  _safe_. I want this world to end. I want something  _better_.And I will be  _damned_ if I let you make me feel like the bad guy for wanting that.”

In the long silence that followed, Darcy wondered when exactly she and the kids had stopped being enough for him, when he stopped being happy to live out their lives in the Sanctuary.

She wished, for a guilty moment, that they had never found this place. Never found other people. That their world could have stayed small and safe enough so Steve felt he had enough control over it to just be  _Steve._

Right now, she felt in a way that she had never felt before, that she wasn’t talking to Steve Rogers. She was talking to the Captain. And Captain America had never struck Darcy as a man who knew a lot about compromise.

She wondered how much room there would be in his uncompromising world view for her.

“You guys coming?” Sam’s voice broke the silence, and Darcy turned on her heel to follow after him.

He led them into the brick building, where a tall man was hefting a huge crate out from a stack of supplies.

“Darcy, Steve,” he said with a grin, “Meet Mac.”

Mac stood of and turned to them, “Captain,” he said, “Miss Lewis,”

Darcy waited for Steve to correct him on the title, but he just nodded.

“Agent Alphonso Mackenzie,” he said, to the surprise of Steve and Darcy. “I used to work for Coulson,” he added with a bit of a grin, “So I’ve heard a lot about you, Cap.”

“Coulson,” asked Steve, “Did he?”

Mac shook his head, “Sorry.”

“So,” said Darcy, aiming to break the uncomfortable mood, “you’re our satellite guy?”

“I’m your satellite guy,” he said, popping open the crate to show a mish mash of computer equipment and technical tools “or at least the closest you’re likely to get.” He qualified. “I’m a mechanic really, but working for SHIELD, you pick up a lot.”

“You’re telling me. I was never anything more than a glorified intern and look where I ended up,” Darcy half winced at her dark tone as she shouldered one of their heavy packs towards him.

Mac, though, didn’t seem to take much notice and grinned at her as he pulled the pack towards him, “Don’t know if you can entirely blame that on SHIELD,” he paused, looking at her thoughtfully, “unless you guys made the zombies? There some sort of tragic experiment gone wrong story I should know about?”

Darcy rolled her eyes, amused in spite of herself, pulling open the top of the pack, “You used to watch way too many movies,” she said, “Can we focus here?” she gestured to the electronics packed and wrapped tightly for protection.

“Ma’am yes ma’am,” said Mac with a mock salute as he began unpacking.

“Lewis,” said Sam, “I’m going to take a giant leap here and assume you’re better with electronics than our friend Steven.”

“A safe bet,” she said dryly, turning to face Sam and pointedly avoiding Steve’s gaze, “you want me to stay here and help out?”

“If Mac can use you,” said Sam, turning a questioning look to the other man.

“Sure,” he said easily, “so long as you can give me a run down on what equipment you’re working with up north.”

Darcy nodded and went back to unpacking and sorting the equipment they had brought, keeping half her attention on the conversation between Sam and Steve going on behind her.

“Steve, you mind giving us some help shoring up the walls?” Sam asked.

“Of course,” said Steve. Darcy was ungraciously gratified to hear the tension in his voice. “I’ve got some thoughts on how you might improve your defenses, if you’re interested.”

“Everyone’s a critic,” said Sam without any hostility, “glad for any help you want to give. Used to be just the dead we were dealing with, and that’s all we really built the walls to deal with. Lately though… there are a couple of crews of raiders that are passing through here more and more often. We figure that three years into this thing means that there’s not all that much out there left to raid.”

“Except you,” said Steve.

“Except us.”

“You should show me what weapons you’ve got,” said Steve, all business, “We’ll see what we might be able to supply you with…” their conversation trailed off as they walked out of the bunker.

“Steve or Sam?” Mac asked, breaking her concentration.

“Whaaa?” Darcy turned back to him in surprise.

He looked like he was suppressing laughter. “You’ve been staring into space unpacking that one circuit board for a solid two minutes. So which one of ‘em is it that makes you go soft in the head. I mean, my money’d be on Steve, but I’ve seen Sam work pretty quick before.”

“Oh” said Darcy, putting the circuit board she was holding down. “Sorry I was just…uh…” She was just fooling no one, is what she was doing. She sighed heavily. “It’s Steve.”

“Hmmmm,” said Mac with an odd sort of look.

“What?” said Darcy defensively.

“All thing being equal, I just wouldn’t have figured…he seems so…patriotic.”

“That’s new,” said Darcy with more venom than she meant. Mac raised a brow. “Listen,” she said finally, “I don’t exactly want to get into it, but I didn’t know him Before. I met him on the road and he was…definitely not the Captain. He’s been surviving just like the rest of us for three years. But now…”

“Ahhh,” said Mac, a dawning look of understanding, “all of a sudden there’s a world to save again and he’s more interested in picking up the torch than keeping an eye on the home front, right?”

She looked at him in surprise, “Actually, yeah. That’s exactly it.”

Mac shrugged, “I’ve known a few heroes in my day. All I can say is that you might want to give him a little time to try to adjust to the whole Captain America thing again. Wait and see if his new ‘everybody else first’ attitude is going to last before you write him off.”

“You know you’re pretty smart for a grease monkey,” Darcy said with a smile, feeling a little easier.

“Flattery will get you everywhere, Lewis,” he said with a swift grin, “except out of dealing with this mess of electronics you’ve brought me. I’m gonna need your help with that.”

“Right,” she said, turning herself back to the task at hand, “so this,” she picked up a small transceiver and a handset, “is our short wave system. We’ve been dropping poles on our way down, and we could get up communications to the Sanctuary in a heartbeat with this one, but that’s not the real goal.”

“Of course not,” Mac rolled his eyes and squatted down near the pile of machinery, “the goal has to involve the rest of this mess. Otherwise it’d be too easy.”

“The rest of this mess,” said Darcy, “is what we’re hoping you can use to link into the satellites. Right now, all we’ve got is a receiver that’ll pick up un-encoded data whenever it happens to be in our range. In an ideal world, we’d be able to tap into the physical systems so we can actually point satellites where we need them and get through the encoding so that we can actually transmit, get more functionality.”

“Oh is that all?” said Mac with ironic surprise. “Boy, you don’t do things by half, do you?”

“Not as a rule. So you think you can hack it?”

“I’m not going to hack it,” said Mac, poking through her pile of machinery, “but I’m not going to have to.”

“So you’re going to what? Just ask the satellites nicely?” Darcy raised a brow.

“In a manner of speaking,” he said easily, not rising to her bait, “I’m going to build a really illegal government satellite scanner.”

“A what?” Darcy blinked.

“Same principle as a police scanner, really,” said Mac, “not exactly something that is available on the market because listening in on satellite data would get you disappeared really fast. Or at least, you know, it would have when there were governments keeping their eyes on that sort of thing. But it’s doable. Once we can lock on to whatever frequency the government is using, we don’t have to care what codes they are using. We can just wipe ‘em and use our own.”

“Oh,” said Darcy with a dawning sort of realization, “you’re one of those.”

“One of what?”

“Should’ve figured, being on Coulson’s team and all, but it gets me every time. That whole ‘just doing my job’ attitude. But you’re a huge freaking super brain.”

“You sayin’ my head is funny looking Lewis?” he teased.

“I’m saying I’m surprised you’re as pretty as you are with all those smarts stuffed in there,” she quipped back, “We’ve been trying to figure out this satellite thing for months and you just did it in about five minutes.”

“Well,” said Mac, not bothering to hide a bit of preening, “we do still have to figure out how to build this thing.”

“Right,” said Darcy, her face dropping into a bit of a frown, “the work part.” She sighed and rolled up her sleeves, “what’re your orders boss?”

Nearly nine hours later, the sun just starting to dip below the horizon, they finally turned over the old generator, plugged in the equipment strung to the satellite dish on the roof, and started scanning.

Not 30 seconds later, the terminal gave a low beep. And then an odd little beep came from a crate somewhere in the building. From outside the open door, they could hear the tinny distant sound of a dozen or so more.

Darcy looked at Mac in bewilderment. He was grinning.

“Guess all those iPhones we’ve been using for walkie talkies are getting reception.”

“We did it?” Darcy asked excitedly.

“We sure did,” Mac said with a slow grin. “Welcome back to the information age, I guess.”

“Oh _no_ ,” Darcy groaned theatrically, “does this mean that we’re going to have to go back to dealing with text message etiquette?”

Mac laughed out loud. “Someone’d have to want to text you first, Lewis.”

“Oh come on,” said Darcy with a wide grin, grabbing his hand and pulling him out of the bunker so they could go spread the good news. “I’m very textable.”

When they were outside, Mac stuck his hands in his pockets with a roll of his eyes, “You’re something alright.”

“Watch it,” she said, as they moved to bang on Sam’s trailer door, a small act that was about to turn isolated two groups of survivors, two little groups of ‘us’ into a _we_ , “or I won’t let you take the credit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pay no attention to the flobotenum about sattelites. The author (who knows absolutely jack all about satellites) is totally not behind that curtain. Be distracted by the Great and Terrible Angst!!!!! WoooOOOoOOOoooooOoOo.


	3. Fences

I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

 

Mending Wall (Robert Frost)

 

There was a low crackle, followed by a hiss of static that slowly settled.

Darcy looked around at Sam and Steve and Mac, and then tried “Hello?”

“A little protocol, Lewis,” came the exasperated voice of Maria Hill.

“Oh, right!” said Darcy with a grin, “Lewis, calling HQ.”

“ _Thank_ you,” came Hill’s voice, “This is…”

“Maria?” Sam broke in with a sort of choking noise.

“Wh…who is…is that…. _Sam_?”

They were all looking at Sam in surprise.

“Hey,” said Sam thickly, “How you doin’”

“I’m…you’re…I mean…” Darcy had never heard Maria Hill at a loss for words before.

“So,” said Mac slowly, “Anything you want to share with the class?”

“Uh…sorry, I…sorry. Hi…hi Sam, it’s….good to hear from you.” She struggled to bring her voice under control.

“Yeah, you too Agent Hill,” Sam’s smile was cheek splitting, “Shoulda known you’d be riding this thing out in comfort.”

“Well,” said Steve, “We’re glad we could bring you some good news, Hill. Sam’s got about a 100 people down here living behind some pretty impressive walls.”

“And someone who got us a solid link to the satellites,” Maria said sounding a bit more like herself, “The links stabilized for us up here the minute we got your call.”

“That’d be Mac,” said Darcy, “Agent Alfonso Mackenzie, formerly of SHIELD.”

“Coulson,” Maria asked sharply, “you were on his team, weren’t you? Is he…”

“Sorry ma’am,” said Mac. “He didn’t…”

“It’s alright,” she said stiffly, “It’s the people that made it that are the surprise.”

“Hill,” said Steve, “We’re setting these people up so they can produce Thanatos. They’re going to help us start thinning the herd from the south end.” He paused, looking over his shoulder at Darcy. “We made them some promises in return that we’ll need to discuss.”

“Alright,” said Hill in a steadier tone, “It’s understandable that there will be some negotiations here. How was the trip down? Is it feasible to travel between the Sanctuary and the people down there?”

“Well, even if we could drive the whole way, it’s at least three solid days. And that would require clear roads all the way up. Regular transit is going to be tough,” Darcy said, “we should see if we can figure something out, start clearing some road, because these people could probably use some supplies.”

“Actually,” said Mac, “we might be able to help you with that. We’ve got a chopper here, all fueled up. Sort of a a Hail Mary escape plan I suppose. If you all can track down any heliport or airports that are likely to have a good store of aviation fuel, particularly the secret military kind that aren’t likely to have been raided, we could probably make that trip in less than a day in a few hops.”

“Are you sure the chopper works?” asked Hill.

“Damn sure,” said Mac, “I’m the one who repaired it.”

“Well that would…” Hill was cut off at the sound of gunfire outside.

“Hill,” said Steve sharply, looking at Sam’s expression, “we gotta go. We’ll call in tomorrow, make a plan.”

Steve cut off the transmission and turned to Sam.

“Your people have weapons?” he asked.

“Not nearly enough,” Sam said darkly, pulling his side arm.

Darcy unholstered the gun she kept strapped to her side. “Why are they shooting if the walls will keep the dead out?” she asked as they moved towards the source of the fire.

“Probably because it ain’t the dead,” said Sam.

They went running out the door and she saw with a pang that for the very first time she had seen him do it, Steve went running for his shield at the sign of trouble.

The four of them climbed to the top of the wall quickly and looked over the edge.

Outside of the walls was a group of probably two dozen heavily armed men in several ATV’s, pick-ups and SUVs with reinforced rams on the front. A group of people up on the walls were firing down on them, but the men, unlike the dead, knew to keep themselves covered.

The attackers, on the other hand, clearly had at least a few crack shots. She and Steve fell against the wall, shoulder to shoulder as the sharp whine of a bullet passed just over their heads.

“So,” said Steve, “You wanna raise up a white flag, start negotiating?” He meant it to make light of their argument, she knew. But if he thought she was in a mood to joke about, he was _way_ off base.

“Fuck you, Steve,” she cut out harshly, furious that he was going to use this to make a point, before pushing everything away except the fight.

The attackers got a few good runs at the wall, material coming away from it with a screeching tear, and Darcy saw at least two people on the wall struck.

But the calm and accurate fire of well-trained shooters on the top of the wall felled almost half their numbers before they turned and started to run.

“We have to take out their vehicles,” Steve shouted over to her from where we was a little ways down the wall, “Stop them from trying again.”

“Steve!” she started yelling back, but he was already up and over the rough lip of the wall. Pitted and uneven, it was easy for him to skid down into the fray. Darcy rolled her eye and let out an exasperated groan, but wasn’t about to let him do this alone. She followed him down the wall.

When the fleeing men realized they were being followed, it quickly became clear that Steve and Darcy weren’t going to take the vehicles without taking out the men inside them.

Darcy herself knew she had taken down at least three with clear shots to the temple. She was calm, and so focused that she barely noticed a bullet graze her left shoulder.

She did notice, though, when one of the men shouted to his fellows over the noise of gunfire. “Well holy shit boys, it’s Captain America!”

There was an answering hoot of recognition and, if anything, the gunfire picked up. Darcy had her back pressed against a crooked telephone pole and was firing from its cover. She looked over to where Steve was crouched behind an overturned garbage bin firing from behind his shield.

“And he brought his girl into the fight!” hollered another voice back.

Darcy whipped her head to the left, one of the men had doubled back on an ATV and was only meters away from her and closing fast.

Before she could line up her shot, she was pulled off her feet by an iron hard hand around the wrist of her firing arm. The ATV was still driving onwards and her upper body fell against the side of it with a bone shuddering crash as her feet were dragged along under her, scrambling for purchase.

“Well look what we got Captain,” the gunfire had stopped entirely now and the remaining group of raiders stood in front of their vehicles as Darcy and her captor pulled in behind them.

Steve had stepped out from behind his cover, his shield in front of him and a hopeless sort of hard look on his face.

“Let her go,” he called over to them in a remarkably calm voice, “and I’ll let you go.”

Darcy could see the men around, many of them injured. She could see them look to the dead men lying on the ground nearer the wall, the guns trained on them from above, and the ferocity in Steve’s eyes.

“Sounds like a square deal Captain,” the man who seemed to be in charge called back. “Here’s how it’s going to go. This pretty little lady is going to sit on her ass right here in the open. My friend here,” he gestured to a man with a wicked looking long range rifle beside him, “is going to keep his sights trained on her until we’re out of range. We see you move a muscle or anybody takes a shot before then, she’s gonna get a bullet right between her eyes, got it?”

Steve nodded. He wasn’t looking at them though, he was looking at her. “I accept your terms,” he said clearly, “clear out.”

The man leered down at her. “Must be somethin’ special girl,” and Darcy’s stomach churned. “Worth keeping alive maybe, when we come back for this place. Why don’t you convince me?”

“Go to hell,” she cut out at him, and sat on the ground with her back to them. She heard him laughing as they drove off.

As the adrenaline of the situation started to fade, she became more and more aware of the burning pain in her shoulder, blood from a shallow graze running down her arm. Her ribs and the side of her face felt badly bruised from being pulled off her feet against the ATV. Her shins skinned from dragging against the ground.

But she kept herself upright, looking directly at Steve where he stood only a few meters away. Because he was there keeping himself upright and still as the attackers gained distance.

Finally, when she couldn’t hear the engines anymore, Steve started running towards her, and she immediately doubled over, feeling violently ill.

It wasn’t just the pain.

Despite all she had been through, and all she had lost, she had never taken a human life. It was, she found, materially different than shooting their reanimated corpses.

“Darcy?” Steve was calling her name, she realized through the ringing in her ears. “Darcy?” it was more alarmed this time.

“She’s hit,” Mac’s voice came from her other side, “doesn’t look too bad. Must be in shock.”

She shook her head to clear it. “I’m  _fine_ ,” she managed, pulling herself to her feet. “I’ll be fine,” she only wobbled a little, but Steve was right there at her elbow.

“I’ve got a med kit in the tent,” said Steve, “Sam, let me know if you need me for anything else.”

“Naw,” said Sam eyeing the two of them carefully, “You go take care of her. We can figure this shit out tomorrow.”

+

+

She sat quietly as Steve ripped the ruined fabric of her sleeve away and carefully cleaned the shallow gouge left behind by the bullet before bandaging it.

“Darcy?” he finally broke the silence. “Can we just…I mean, I know things are crazy but I need…Just..truce? Can we call a truce for a minute here?”

She could feel the buzzing sort of distance the encounter with the attackers had left her in beginning to recede. And god dammit did getting shot really fucking hurt. She took a shuddering breath.

“Yeah,” she managed with only a bit of a wobble, “okay. Truce.” And she turned to press her face into Steve’s chest.

He carefully gathered her into his lap, his arms settling around her, and his head lowered to hers. They stayed like that for a while, just breathing into each other’s space.

“Are you okay?” said Steve finally.

“It’s just a graze,” she said, pulling back from him with a weak smile, “I’ve had worse.”

“Not that,” said Steve dismissively, “I mean, are you  _okay_.” He looked at her in steady inquiry.

“I’ve never killed anyone living before,” she said finally.

Steve nodded.

“I really don’t like it,” she managed thickly.

Steve nodded again.

“How do you deal with it?” she finally asked him.

He blew out a breath.

“Mostly I try not to think about it,” he said, “and I try to make sure it’s necessary.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, after a thick silence. “I shouldn’t have followed you down. It was stupid to get caught in the open like that. I’m just not used to…humans, you know? I’ve gotten so used to moving slow and deliberate…”

“Hey,” said Steve softly, a hand against her cheek, “You know there was never a question, would never _be_ a question of anything being more important than you, right?”

She dropped her forehead against his chest, hot tears leaking from her eyes. “I just hate that I put you in that position, that your damn shield put you in that position.”

“Hey,” Steve caught her chin in his hand, “look at me Darce.”

She dragged watery eyes up to meet his.

For a moment it looked like he was going to say something reassuring, but instead he just bent his mouth to hers.

It wasn’t a solution. Tomorrow morning, they would wake up and they would still have very different ideas of how they should be moving forward. Steve’s shield would still make him a target, would still make _her_ a target, and she could see full well how that weighed on him.

But for now, for tonight, she pressed herself up into the familiar warmth of his lips, lost herself in the way she knew just how to bite and suck and pull at his mouth and tongue to make his breath come short and his hands tighten on her hips.

They were quiet, nothing but heavy breath and quiet sighs escaping the tent, but it didn’t do anything to dull the way she felt when he carefully pulled her shirt over her injured arm, his hands spread wide across her rib cage, thumbs brushing across her breasts as she opened her mouth in silent appreciation.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured reverently against her ear as they finally lay pressed against each other, skin to skin in the narrow cot.

He was careful of her shoulder, but she was reckless as she tangled the fingers of her good arm through his hair and pulled him close, breathing the same air as him, as if she could keep them together through physical proximity alone.

But even as he slid into her, slick and ready, even as his strong hands pulled her hips up against him hitting that spot inside her that had her pressing a hand over her mouth to keep from crying out, there was a distance there that hadn’t been before.

In the quiet, as they lay curled together afterwards, she though it felt a little bit like a goodbye.


	4. Not One Eye, But Two

Not one eye would I give, but two - 

_Well, wouldn't you?_

 

\- Sacrifice (Robert William Service)

 

The next day, they were sitting around the communications array again, deep into a discussion with Sanctuary Command about strategy in a world suddenly full of possibilities again.

“There are other people out here,” Sam was explaining, “only not so neighborly as you all up north. We’ve been seeing it more often lately, but they’ve been around as long as we have. People that chose to stay on the move rather than build up defenses. When areas get raided out, they have to move on. We’re not exactly easy pickings, so they must be getting a bit desperate.”

“It’s likely as not that this is happening all over,” said Steve, “There could be more people than we ever would have expected surviving out there by keeping on the move. There could be other settlements like the Keep without any communications technology. They could be under threat from more than just the dead. There’s a lot of people out there who could use our help, Hill.”

Darcy took a breath, not looking at Steve, knowing their truce was about to officially end.

“But,” said Darcy, “not all of them are going to  _want_ our help.”

She could see the tension creep into Steve’s shoulders.

“What do you mean?” Hill asked.

“Well, one of the first things the people here asked us is what we meant when we asked them to join us. I mean, we don’t have a government, we don’t really have a functioning set of laws. We’re a military operation. Eventually, we’re going to have to hand power over to a stable governing body, right? I don’t think it can be quite as simple as ‘come with me if you want to live’.  If we're going to start walking around and acting like a government, we damn well better be able to back it up. Or we're just the asshole fiefdom with the biggest guns.”

“With all due respect,” Steve managed in a reasonable facsimile of a polite tone, “should we really be putting diplomacy before saving people’s lives?”

“And you think civil war can’t take lives? You think a power coup a few decades down the road isn’t going to leave any dead bodies?”

“Well we can deal with that when….”

“Enough,” cut in Hill sharply.

Darcy and Steve fell so silent so quickly that Mac let out a little stifled laugh.

“You’re laughing now,” said Sam with a grin, “but that’s only ‘cause you haven’t met Hill before.”

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” said Hill, “we’re putting together a map for you of all the viable refueling stations across north America that we can find. You’re going to bring Sam and anyone else he thinks is needed up here. We’re going to work out an agreement with them about how things are going to work between us. Then we’re going to send out a team to find as many living breathing humans as you can and bring as many of them as can be convinced under our umbrella.”

Darcy bristled, but as if Hill could see her, she barreled forward.

“Make a deal with them, give them a territory to clear and the tools to clear it, set up communications, send people that want it either up here or back to the Keep. But Lewis is right. We have to think about what we’re doing. We have the equipment and expertise to start thinking about holding territory and governing it, but we don’t have the resources to govern people that don’t want to be governed.”

She wanted to feel satisfied, but the stubborn set to Steve’s jaw and the way he stood, arms crossed, closed off to her, made it a hollow victory.

“Lewis,” Hill went on, “I know you studied politics and government Before. So pull together a team if you need it. By the time we send the Captain out to go looking for other people, I want your list of the rules you think we need in order to do it.”

Darcy did not miss the way Hill had quite clearly and deliberately slipped an order for the Captain, rather than Steve in there. She didn’t think Steve had either. But he didn’t even seem mildly put out by it.

“And what, exactly, are we supposed to do if people aren’t interested in polite negotiations?” asked Steve.

“Direct threats to human populations will not be tolerated,” said Hill in a no nonsense tone, “but there aren’t a hell of a lot of humans left Rogers, so try not to antagonize them, alright?”

+

+

In the end, it was just her and Steve and Sam making the long trip north to the Sanctuary. Sam left Mac in nominal control of the place. Darcy found herself sad to say goodbye. He had an incredibly calm presence about him, and the rest of her life seemed to be sliding into chaos.

The helicopter, as promised, functioned flawlessly. Sam knew how to handle it well. With the information they had gained from the satellite link, they never ran below a half tank before they could stop and refuel.

It was an odd experience, flying at altitude. Huge stretches of land beneath them appeared untouched and pristine from high up. Even the cities, it was hard to tell at a distance that they were ruined and full of nothing but the dead.

Flying over the herd though, that was distinctly unsettling. It was one thing to know that such an expanse of the dead existed, and that they were fighting it. It was another thing altogether to fly low for a half hour and not be able to see the edge of the swarm.

Landing at the Sanctuary, however, was a better experience. Hill was standing there waiting for them, stiff and tense.

But Sam took one look at her as he ducked out from under the rotor blades, dropped the pack he was carrying with a terse, “fuck it,” and strode towards her. Without even a break in his stride he had his hands in her hair and mouth on hers.

Darcy blinked in surprise, because Maria Hill was kissing him back. A lot.

Even with the chilly tension still hanging between her and Steve, she turned to him and asked, “Did you know anything about this Before?”

“No,” said Steve sounded dazed, “I mean, he did tell me he was seeing someone and she’d asked him to keep it quiet, but I had no  _idea_ it was Hill.” He cracked a smile, “good for him.”

“Good for  _her_ ,” added Darcy, “he really looks like he knows what he’s doing.

She felt Steve’s hand brush against her thigh, and she turned her palm into his, twining their fingers together, and refusing to think too much about it, or the way the physical connection to him no longer brought her comfort, but instead just set her gut churning.

Eventually, Darcy cleared her throat loudly, and they broke apart.

“You guys done?” she called out.

“Never,” she heard Sam say in a low voice, but she guessed it wasn’t really aimed at her.

“Come on,” said Hill, straightening her hair, “everyone is waiting in Command.”

It was almost unprecedented. There had been a few tearful reunions in the early days of the Sanctuary where family and friends from close by communities had found each other alive and safe. But three years into the apocalypse, to find someone you had long since given up as lost?

Even Natasha made a little noise low in her throat that could have been a smothered sob as she allowed Sam to throw his arms around her in an exuberant hug.

“Alright,” said Hill finally, “Of course we’re all thankful to see Mr. Wilson,” even the no nonsense tone of Commander Hill couldn’t disguise the soft look of wonder on her face as she looked over at him, “but the existence of him and his people has raised some bigger issues for us.”

People settled down to listen.

“We’ve been essentially working under the assumption that we were all that was left. Everything we’ve been doing, working to reclaim territory, to thin the herd, it has all been about us, and our future.” Hill took a breath.

“Well, the world just got a hell of a lot bigger again. And the real question is what are we going to do about it?” Hill went on doggedly, “There’s a real strength in numbers issue, that can’t be denied. But Ms. Lewis brought up something that I’m not sure many of us had given much thought to. We’ve got no right to rule anyone. At best, we used to be a shadow government organization working for a government and a country that no longer exist. Plus, currently we’re actually in Canada.”

There were a few chuckles.

“So if we’re going to go out there and help people, which I think we have to, to keep reclaiming territory from the dead, we have to think about how we’re going to do it, what rules we need to set for ourselves and others. How we plan to govern once we’re done fighting. It’s a daunting task.” She said, “But the longer we wait, the more human life we risk losing. And as far as we know, there’s no one else out there with the resources to do it.”

“Lewis is going to put together a team, think about what we need down on paper. Meanwhile, Captain Rogers has agreed to lead out a scouting team. We don’t know how many people might be out there, but given that we’ve seen herds moving west, and given that population density was thickest on the eastern seaboard, we think the best bet is to head back to the Keep and then move northeast.”

Steve nodded, “I’ve got my team together Hill,” he said stiffly, “We can be ready to move as soon as you give your orders.”

Darcy knew he was chafing under this plan, eager to be out there _doing_ something. Eager to put back on the shiny mantle of a hero after feeling tarnished for so long. Particularly because he didn’t agree with what Hill was asking Darcy to do.

But all she could worry about at this moment, the only thing that was even reaching her, is that he wasn’t looking at her. Hadn’t looked at her since that tiny moment getting off of the helicopter when they had both remembered for a moment what passion looked like.

She wondered if he, too, felt that sinking pit of fear that what they had seen between Hill and Sam today was something that was no longer there between them.

+

+

The first thing she did when Hill released them was head to the small school room. At this time of day, all of her little band of survivors would be in the classroom except for Katy and Jack.

She was standing against the wall as they piled out of the room, and it didn’t take long for them to notice her.

“Darcy!” Danny cried, rushing over to her, “you’re back!” she was quickly surrounded by endless questions about the outside world.

“All right, all right,” she said finally, “let’s at least go to mess and get some dinner before you drown me in questions.”

“Is Steve back too?” asked Trish cautiously, “will he be at dinner?”

“Of course Steve is back,” said Darcy with a comforting smile, “but I don’t know if he’ll be at dinner or not.”

It was an unsettling realization. She and Steve had been locked in orbit around each other for almost three years now. She knew he schedule, knew his habits, and knew where he would be at any given time. But something had fundamentally changed. She wasn’t Steve’s center of gravity any more, and he was being pulled slowly but inexorably away from her.

She wondered if the ever present spinning feeling in her gut meant that he was still hers.

Steve, it turned out, was at dinner, and gamely answered all the questions he could. And in turn caught up on all of the comings and goings they had missed over their absence. While there weren’t all that many people in the Sanctuary, it didn’t seem to stem the tide of gossip that permeated the lives of the young teens.

And if the kids noticed that she and Steve never really spoke to each other through their barrage of questions and inhaling their dinners, they didn’t let on.

Katy, of course, was more blunt.

“Darcy,” she said, grabbing her elbow as they walked out of mess, “got a minute?” she didn’t really give her an option as she pulled her into a conference room.

“Good to see you too,” said Darcy with a wry grin.

“You and Steve are being idiots again,” said Katy, crossing her arms with a disappointed look on her face.

Like clockwork, whenever she and Steve were at odds, Katy and, to a lesser extent, Jack felt some sort of obligation to stick their noses in.

And, Darcy had to admit, she and Steve found themselves at odds with reasonable regularity and Katy and Jack had a pretty good track record of setting them back on course.

She sighed. She wasn’t sure how she felt about those two young people being an example of a stable relationship. But then again, Katy and Jack didn’t have quite the same level of bullshit to deal with as her and Steve.

“We’re not being idiots this time,” she said, sitting heavily in a chair.

“Oh come on,” said Katy, “that’s what you said when you were mad at Steve for letting Danny and Eric drive the tractor and when Steve was mad at you for scolding Trish for hitting back when someone pushed her, and when…”

“Alright, alright,” Darcy cut her off, “we _have_ been idiots on a number of occasions. But this isn’t about any of the kids and isn’t about something stupid.”

“Well, what is it then?” prodded Katy, clearly not really believing her.

“Steve’s picked up his shield again,” she started, because she didn’t quite know where else to begin. “He was happy here, you know? _We_ were happy.”

The words started tumbling out of her almost against her will. She didn’t want to put this on Katy. Everyone had enough to deal with, and even though Katy was no longer really a girl, she would never stop feeling responsible for her wellbeing.

But if she didn’t tell someone, she thought she might scream.

“I thought we were enough for him. But the minute we got out there and found that there were people, hundreds maybe thousands, who needed help, it’s like I could see the change. Suddenly I wasn’t enough anymore. Our life wasn’t enough. Like he’s been hiding it from me all this time, his need to be… _more_ again. And now he’s got his chance, and he’s barreling in headfirst without thinking about the consequences and….I just…he’s so far away from me now.”

She was somewhat surprised to find that her words came out choked and there were tears running down her face.

“Darcy,” said Katy, looking alarmed, ”you _know_ that’s not true. He loves you. He loves _us_.”

She sighed shakily. “I know that, but this is bigger than us. He sees people out there that need saving and he needs to go out and be the one to do it. Even after everything he’s been through, after everything we’ve _all_ been through, it’s just the way he’s built.”

“Is that so bad, really?” asked Katy carefully, “I mean, I know it’s scary, thinking of him out there again, but it is a bad thing that he wants to help people?”

“No, of course not,” said Darcy, “but the _way_ he wants to go about helping people... He wants peace and he wants unity and good governance and all of those are _good_ things. But he doesn’t want to give people and option, and he doesn’t see how quickly that could make us the bad guys.”

Katy considered this for a moment, “And you see it differently?”

“It has to be a choice,” said Darcy firmly, “And people need to know what they’re choosing. And Steve,” she sighed. “Steve has always had an “us or them” sort of mentality.”

She paused for a moment, and a gasping sob broke out of her throat.

“And it’s not even that, not really,” she choked, “We’ve fought about politics before, but this time he’s…” she could hardly draw a breath, “Katy, he’s choosing a path that doesn’t have any room for me in it. He’s pulling away from me…and he _chose_ it. He chose this.”

The younger woman wrapped her arms around her, pulling her out of her chair and into a tight embrace. Darcy didn’t know how long they stood there, but when she was done she felt calmer.

Not better, just heavy with an odd sort of emptiness. And it was enough to let her do what needed to be done.

+

+

She gathered together a small group of people, knowing that too many cooks in the kitchen on something like this was only going to make things take longer and produce something less cohesive. Everyone and their brother could have their chance to review it, poke holes in it, and make it better once it was done, but the framework had to be carefully built.

So in the end it was her, a woman named Dahlia who had been with SHIELD’s legal department, Vince and Tess.

Hill had raised an eyebrow about including the teenager, but hadn’t taken much convincing. Tess had already proven herself a serious student who understood a lot more about the world they lived in than most gave her credit for. While she and Ben and Danny and Eric and Trish had all proved remarkably resilient to what they had experienced out on the road, Tess seemed to hold a bit more of it with her than the others. But it didn’t seem to weigh her down. Instead, it gave her purpose.

Darcy often thought she worked too hard for a teenager. Natasha had told her, in no uncertain terms, to butt out and let Tess deal with things her own way. Her own way seemed to involve a lot of time training with Natasha, which helped explain Natasha’s protectiveness. And in the end, Darcy couldn’t think of a better protector for a kid to have in the world as it was these days, so she had stepped back and watched Tess grow strong and confident.

Plus, it was also really her generation that would be dealing with this new world order, so they should damn well have a say in how it started.

It took two solid days with very little rest. But they got their document down to one, clear page. Dahlia had wanted to call it the Unity Charter, Vince was keen on the Declaration of Zombie Independence, but it was the Tess that won out.

It had turned out to be a huge help to have her there. They had decided from the beginning that all they needed was the very basic things that they needed to agree on to in order to co-exist. She had consistently been a voice of clear and simple reason. “Do you really need to agree to that to get along?” So a simple agreement was what they arrived at. When they presented the Accords (because Dahlia thought going with The Agreements was one step too far) to the council, there were only eight carefully parsed rules:

1.     Territory – Any individual or group who destroys all of the undead in an area, keeps that area reasonably clear of the undead, and maintains a stable social group, will control and govern that area and may sign these Accords on behalf of that area. Regularly visiting or raiding an area is not enough to establish control.

2.     Governance – We recognize that all living humans are currently in a period of crisis. During this period, the individual or group in control of a territory may govern that territory as they see fit, subject to these Accords.  When this period of crisis has passed (as determined by a simple majority of signatories to these Accords) one representative from each individual or group signatory will come together to create a plan for peaceful governance.

3.     Law – If any individual in the governed territory feels they are being treated unfairly, or if a dispute has occurred which cannot be resolved, any individual may contact the Sanctuary to act as a neutral arbiter. Any signatories to the Accords must agree to be bound by the decision of the Sanctuary.

4.     Thanatos – Everyone who is willing, regardless of whether they are signatories or not, shall be supplied with Thanatos if it is available. All signatories must work to produce and distribute Thanatos when and if they have the infrastructure to do so.

5.     Clearing – All signatories must contribute to clearing further territory. Any territory cleared by a signatory will become part of their existing territory.

6.     Supplies – The Sanctuary will provide communications equipment to all signatories and will provide supplies, people, training and military assistance upon the request of any signatory to the extent that they are able.

7.     Equality - Every person is equal, and no rule, law or practice to the contrary will be tolerated.

  1.    Sanctuary – Any individuals who seek it shall be offered sanctuary in the territory governed by any signatory, so long as they agree to the Accords and agree to obey the governance of the individual or group that controls that area.



It was a good list, and Darcy was proud of it. She also knew that, if Steve’s voice hadn’t been pressing on the back of her skull, making her think about not only fairness and equality, but also the importance of keeping people _alive_ the list wouldn’t have been quite the same.

She wouldn’t, for one thing, have made the Sanctuary the neutral arbiter. She knew quite well from her political history that providing neutral justice, un-tainted by the microcosm of jealousy, power dynamics, and gossip the inevitable ran rampant in small societies, was a tested strategy for establishing and maintaining control. It would have been just as easy to let any signing group act as an arbiter, but she made a different choice.

She also knew that Steve wouldn’t be too happy with leaving whoever held territory in control of it with very little check on the type of society they chose to run. She well knew, even after her brief experience at the Keep, that this might mean violent, undemocratic rule in many places for a long time. She knew full well that, despite the Accords, many places would not make access to the communications equipment easy, and many people who might want to, would not be able to call on the Sanctuary for aid. She also knew that it wouldn’t be a simple thing to come together and plan for good governance.

But it was something. It was at least a hope for building something new from the ground upwards. Something built on foundations of respect and equality.

And now she could only hope that all of her planning didn’t go to shit out in the field. For once, the fact that Steve would be at the helm did not give her comfort.

+

+

“So,” Hill was finishing up a long and detailed briefing for the teams assembled in command, “Now that we’ve got some structure set down on paper, we will move out and find as many other survivors as we can. Rogers and his team will return to the Keep and head east from there. Primary goal is to gain their willing allegiance and assistance in clearing the herds, secondary goal is to establish clear and cordial relations with those who do not wish to join. If all else fails, at least we will know our enemies. Rogers and his team will be moving out tomorrow.”

Darcy turned to watch Steve, as he didn’t know what was coming yet.

“In addition, we will attempt to establish contact with the signal we have detected south of the Keep, just over the former Mexican border. It looks like it could be a large and well established group. Once we have established contact, Lewis will take a team south to supply them with Thanatos and open negotiations.”

Hill and Darcy looked at each other steadily. They had had a long discussion about this in private. A group with enough technology in use to show up on the satellites was, in one sense, very good news. But on the other hand, if they ended up with a rival for power in such close proximity to the Keep, it would quickly become a lot harder to do what they were trying to do.

It was very much, they had decided, a situation for careful diplomacy and not a time to send a symbol of the former United States into Mexican territory with an armed assault team.

To anyone else, it probably looked like Steve had known this all along. But Darcy could see the tension creeping through him.

As Hill finished up with the briefing, all Darcy could think was that this meeting was about to end, and then Steve would be leaving, and she had no assurance that she would ever see him again.

As everyone filed out, she managed to grab his elbow. He looked down at her and nodded, and they slipped into a storage room.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about heading back south,” said Darcy as they stood in the dim space, barely two feet apart.

“You’re one of the best Darce,” said Steve with a dull sort of resignation, “it makes sense to send you. I worry about the kids with both of us gone, but…”

“Katy and Jack will be here,” said Darcy firmly, pushing down her own anxiety about leaving, “and they’ll be well cared for.”

“I don’t think you see just how much they rely on you,” he said, “but I think they also get that what we’re doing is important.”

“They’re good kids,” Darcy said with a small smile. At least this, they could agree on.

There was a long pause. They had been doing a very thorough job of avoiding each other since they arrived back from the Keep, and it was hard to break through that to say anything real.

“Darce,” said Steve after a pause, “I don’t want to leave like this.”

“I know,” she said, feeling her throat tighten. “You know I love you, right?” she tried thinly.

“I know,” he said reaching out to take her hand, “you know I love you too.”

It didn’t feel like a solution, or comfort. And they were both adult enough to know that sometimes love just wasn’t enough.

“Just,” she drew a shuddering breath, “just be careful out there, okay? Come back.”

“I’ll be safe,” he said with a reassuring squeeze of her hand, “You do the same, alright?”

She nodded.

“And don’t…” he paused with a swallow, “maybe don’t mention me to anyone you run into out there. I think we’ve already seen that not everyone is too keen on the Captain.”

“Then why are you so keen to pick up the shield again?” she cut out before she could stop herself.

Steve sighed. “Darcy, please don’t do this.”

“Don’t what? Don’t worry about you? You don’t think I notice you pulling away from me? You don’t think I notice the way you look at me ever since what happened outside of the Keep? You don’t think I know that you think you have to choose between being with me and being Captain America?” Once it started, it kept flooding out of her until she was standing their gasping for air.

“And what if I _do_ have to make that choice,” Steve let out in a thick voice, “after all you’ve been spouting about the chance we have here to move forward, to build a world that’s better than what was before, you’re saying I should chose my _feelings_ over that?”

“I’m asking you to _pick me_ ,” she half shouted at him.

There was a long stillness, and Steve was just _looking_ at her, his face unreadable. And then, he reached up, tangled his hand in her hair fiercely and _kissed_ her. Kissed her like he was dying, like she was air and he was drowning.

And then with an almost animal growl, he pulled away from her, and he was gone.


	5. Operation Reclamation

**Historical Records: Sanctuary Communications - Operation Reclamation - Alpha Team**

 

 

**[04/17/2017:13:51]**

**Cpt. Rogers: Alpha Team calling Base, Base do you copy?**

**Cmdr. Hill: Alpha Team, this is Base, we copy. Report?**

**CR: We’ve reached the Keep. Sam is going to head north with the chopper and should reach you by nightfall. Alpha Team is prepped and ready to move out tomorrow at first light.**

**CH: Copy that, Rogers. We’ve pinpointed two potential supply drops on the first leg of your route. Both community supply bunkers. Also good spots to look for survivors. We’ve sent coordinates down to Mac and he should be able to map it out for you.**

**CR: Sounds like a good place to start. We’ll continue standard radio procedure, check in every 12 hours or when we make contact.**

**CH: We’ll make sure there’s someone in command to hear you Captain. Good Luck.**

 

**[04/18/2017:09:23]**

**Agent “Mac” MacKenzie: Keep to Base, do you copy?**

**Darcy Lewis: This is Base, we read you. To what do we owe this unscheduled surprise?**

**Mac: That you, Lewis? They got you stuck on coms?**

**DL: I sit my shift just like everyone else Mac. And sometimes, as you can see, it pays off. Whatta you got for me?**

**Mac: Maybe another supply drop for Alpha Team. I’m going to send you through some coordinates, see if you can pull it up on a satellite? Check out the area?**

**DL: Got the coordinates, and…looks like the area is relatively clear, no swarms hanging around. It does look like a couple of buildings in the area have gone down, but that might have actually kept a supply bunker pretty well hidden. Pass it on to Alpha Team, will you?**

**Mac: Why not just give it to them on their next check in?**

**DL: I’m not here for the check ins. Mostly just working on seeing what we can get about that group south of the Keep.**

**Mac: Uh huh, and I’m sure there is nothing planned about that timing at all. You wanna talk abouyt it.**

**DL: Official channel Mac, you can Make me a cup of tea when I make it back down there, okay?**

**Mac: Or a stiff drink?**

**DL: Or that. I’ll check in once I’ve got more to go on for the trip south. Base out.**

 

**[04/21/2017:18:34]**

**CR: Base this is Alpha Team, do you copy! Come in base!**

**Agent Natasha Romanoff: Rogers, this is Base, what’s going on out there?**

**CR: We’ve made contact.**

**NR: Doesn’t sound like a peaceful negotiation.**

**CR: Not quite. Best I can tell this is the group that attacked the Keep. They are showing no interest in negotiations and a hell of a lot of interest in killing us and taking our stuff.**

**NR: You heard Hill, Rogers, direct threats to human populations will not be tolerated.**

**NR: Rogers, you still there?**

**CR: Yeah, yeah I’m here. The teams got them pinned down. The issue is that if we immobilize them and leave them here, they’re as good as dead, but we can’t risk them following us. Your orders base?**

**NR: You know what my orders are going to be Rogers.**

**CR: Give them anyways Nat.**

**NR: How many surviving combatants Alpha Team?**

**CR: Eight.**

**NR: Too many to risk cutting them lose. Have you given them a copy of the Accords.**

**CR: Repeated attempts were made.**

**NR: Then it’s too big of a risk to let them follow you. Secure them and move on.**

**CR: …Copy that Base.**

**NR: Lewis, put down the mic.**

**DR: Steve? I heard gunfire, are you….**

**CR: Alpha team signing off.**

 

**[04/24/2017:12:34]**

**CH: Alpha Team, this is base, do you copy?**

**Agent Andrew Palmer: Base, this is Palmer, we copy.**

**CH: Where is Rogers?**

**AP:…a bit caught up at the moment.**

**CH: You missed check in, what happened?**

**AP: We found some people out here base. They were pretty excited to see us. Took us a minute to get back to our equipment.**

**CH: How many?**

**AP: About 20? We’ll stay here for a day or two, get you a full report tomorrow. You should gear up for a supply run pretty quick though, these people barely made it.**

**CH: What’s that in the background?**

**AP: Well commander, I’m pretty sure it’s the closest thing to a ticker tape parade the Captain has seen in a while. You were right to send him out with the shield. He passed them a copy of the Accords and they signed it without even looking at it.**

**CH: Good.  I’m sure those people could use a hero right now.**

**AP: Yes Ma’am, they could.**

 

**[04/27/2017:16:45]**

**DL: This is Base calling Keep, do you copy.**

**Mac: Well, if it isn’t my lucky day. How are things up north, Lewis?**

**DL: Same old same old, but it looks like I’ll be heading down your way pretty soon.**

**Mac: You find something about our friends to the south?**

**DL: Not exactly, we’re just pretty sure that the signals we’re getting off then are sort of accidental and they don’t have any communications that we’ll be able to link up with from here.**

**Mac: Accidental?**

**DL: Yeah, looks like they’re centered around an old broadcasting center. They’ve rigged up some working power, and we think they’re inadvertently powering some broadcasting equipment. Good news is that it shouldn’t take much to get a link up and running once we’re there.**

**Mac: So you’re just going to walk up to the front door?**

**DL: worked with you guys, didn’t it?**

**Mac: Suppose you’re right. And just who do you think is going to be crazy enough to go with you?**

**DL: I said “we” didn’t I?**

 

 

**[05/02/2017:17:23]**

**AP: This is Alpha Team calling Base, Base, do you copy?**

**DL: This is Base, Palmer, is that you?**

**AP: Hey Lewis, we got a report for you. You’re sitting shift tonight?**

**DL: Yeah, working on some stuff for our trip south.**

**AP: Well we’ve got a report for you. We found some more people.**

**DL: Should we get the chopper up and running? It’s a good thing we got those first people up here as soon as we did. Some of them were in really rough shape.**

**AP: No, unfortunately it’s not that kind of people.**

**DL: Aright Alpha Team, report.**

**AP: We’re probably two days south of New York right now and been seeing signs of habitation the more we move upstate. Food waste, temporary shelters, graffiti.**

**DL: Graffiti?**

**AP: Yeah, best we can tell there is a network of small groups who have been surviving out here, raiding and staying on the move. They must have hidden out for the first little while though. The herd that started here is massive.**

**DL: What makes you think it’s a network?**

**AP: Well the graffiti seems to be communication. Some of it seems to mark territory, some of it seems to pass messages.**

**DL: How can you tell?**

**AP: Because they know we’ve got the Captain with us. Word must be spreading. And it doesn’t seem like they’re too pleased about it.**

**DL: Okay, anything else?**

**AP: Well, we’re going to try to see if we can track down a group, open negotiations.**

**DL: You’ll be careful, won’t you? You’ll tell him to be careful?**

**AP: I’ll tell him Lewis.**

 

**[05/05/2017:11:34]**

**CR: Base, this is Alpha Team, do you copy?**

**DL: This is Base.**

**CR: Darcy?**

**DL: This isn’t your normal check in time…I**

**CR: Darce, we’re under attack. We found a group out here. Or they found us. Doesn’t look like we’re going to get a chance to open negotiations.**

**DL: Steve, just stay alive, okay?**

**CR: Dammit, Palmer get back here. Don’t be stupid.**

**CR: Shit. Base, we lost Palmer.**

**DL: We can scramble the chopper Steve…what can I do.**

**CR: Way too far out for that Darce, hold on. Hold on I think they’re pulling back…wait, one of them is...**

**[unknown]: You are not the Captain of us.**

**DL: Steve? Who is that, are you...**

**[unknown]: Whoever you are, I want you to know that we walked up to your team, your _Captain_ and we walked right over them. We could have killed every single one of them.**

**DL: What do you want?**

**[unknown]: We want you to leave us the hell alone.**

**CR: Bucky?**

**[unknown]: Who the hell is Bucky?**

**[END TRANSMISSION]**


	6. I have been

I have been one acquainted with the night.  
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.  
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

-        Robert Frost (Acquainted with the Night)

Alpha team returned to the Sanctuary four days after the attack that killed Palmer.

Darcy did not go out to the helicopter pad to meet them, and Steve did not come to find her.

She was due to head south to the Keep to prepare to trek south with Mac and a small team in four days, but she knew there was no way to avoid Steve for that long. There were bound to be an endless series of command meetings to deal with the information Alpha team had brought back.

But she didn’t feel any desire to seek out that first meeting, only a sinking rolling sort of dread. Not only because she knew that a confrontation with Steve was coming, but because maybe Steve had been right. Maybe her insistence on asking questions first and shooting later was what got Palmer killed.

She had known, intellectually, that there would be people out there who may not want to return to ordered society, or at least what they were deeming ordered society, but it was a very different thing to hear the voices of Alpha team over the comms dealing with people who not only didn’t want their help but would very much prefer that they weren’t alive to give it to anyone else.

In the end, she didn’t even make it two hours before she ran into him in the hall. She had no idea how she should approach the situation, no idea where they stood after those last moment before he left, after both of them spent weeks trying to make sure  they never spoke over the comms.

He looked miserable. He clearly hadn’t showered or changed since he returned, and his shield was still strapped to his back. He was walking next to Nat, headed for command.

He stopped short when he looked up and saw her and the distance in his eyes made her pause and draw in a sharp breath.

It was long enough to let Steve decide how this was going to go.

“Ms. Lewis,” he said with a short impersonal nod, and then he resolutely moved on down the hallway, Natasha looking back at her with a raised eyebrow before they rounded the corner.

And just like that, it was over.

Almost three years with him at her side, having her back, and it was just over.

God, what was she going to tell the kids? It wasn’t like she and Steve were formally married or anything, there was no real call for it, and they had just never felt the need. She had never felt the need. She had thought Steve was such a sure and solid reality that it hadn’t seemed important.

Nothing to unwind, now, she supposed.

She wondered, reluctantly, if Steve had never really wanted to get married for this very reason. If the possibility of choosing to be the Captain again instead of choosing a quiet life, a life with her, had always been in the back of his mind.

+

+

Later that day, she was walking down a hallway lined mostly with empty quarters, and she heard a dull metallic click and a low hum of noise. No one was supposed to be in this part of the Sanctuary, so she approached cautiously. The door was open just a crack, and she could see Steve sitting on the low cot, propped up against the corner, a duffle bag of his belongings against the opposite wall.

He had a small recorder in his hand. She could see he was methodically rewinding and playing a bit of tape over and over again. She could just catch the words through the static.

“Leave us the hell alone.”

“Bucky?”

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

She slipped away quietly. It wasn’t much of a comfort at this point, not the way it felt to go back to what had once been their room finding it empty of anything that was Steve’s, but at least she knew that for Steve, this wasn’t a _choice_. Not really.

Steve would never chose this.

+

+

Unfortunately, as much as Darcy currently wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball and forget about the world, she didn’t exactly have that luxury.

She caught Natasha coming out of the gym with Tess after dinner that evening.

 “Nat,” she caught the other woman’s arm, “you have a minute?”

She nodded, “Tess, go get cleaned up, we’ll debrief later.”

Tess looked between Natasha’s stern expression and Darcy’s red eyes and simply nodded silently before moving down the hall.

“So you and Rogers are having problems again?” Nat asked in a bored tone.

“We’re over Nat,” Darcy barely managed to get the words out in a level tone, “and I need your help to make sure there is no fallout in command.”

Nat let out a sigh. “Come on Lewis, you’re coming with me.”

She pulled Darcy along until they reached the room she shared with Clint.

“Sit,” she said, giving Darcy a shove until she sat, somewhat bewildered on the bed, “I’ll be right back.”

When she returned, she had Clint and a flask of the engine degreaser that sometimes doubled as moonshine that the mechanics had taken to brewing.

“What’s this?” Darcy asked.

“Beats me,” said Clint with a shrug, “I’ve learned never to say no to Nat and alcohol.

Natasha rolled her eyes.

“Steve broke up with Darcy,” she said, passing Darcy the flask.

She took a quick stinging pull from the flask. “Well, he didn’t exactly say the words, but things have been bad ever since the Keep and we had a…fight, I guess, just before he left. And now he’s moved his stuff out.”

She realized that she might have been kind of skating over the reality of this whole situation all day, just like she’d avoided where things stood for so long by avoiding being on the comms for Alpha team check ins. It was starting to sink in, now, that this wasn’t just a difference of opinion on politics, this wasn’t just a fight about Steve picking up the shield again, this was an ending.

When she went back to her room tonight, Steve wouldn’t be in it.

She let out a gasping sort of sob.

Clint dropped next to her on the bed, a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey, I’m sure he’ll snap out of it. You two have been through too much…” he paused, as he looked up at Nat.

“Darcy,” Natasha pulled a chair up to face her, “there are a few things I think you should understand. I don’t know how much of this Steve has told you. A lot of it is classified, although I suppose that doesn’t mean much anymore, and some of it he only learned about today. It might help explain a few things.”

“Steve never really talks about his life Before,” said Darcy thickly, “neither of us do. It didn’t seem to matter anymore.”

“Well,” Natasha took the flask from Darcy for a long drink, “it does now.” She let out a breath.

“The man on the recording, the one Steve called Bucky, is James Buchannan Barnes. I knew him better as the Winter Soldier…”

+

+

By the time Darcy left the room, her head was spinning, not just from the moonshine, but from what she had learned about Steve and Bucky. It put some things into perspective for her, exactly how many people, how much he had lost, the last time he had tried to be both a symbol and a man.

From what Natasha had told her of the Winter Soldier, it also made a targeted attack on Captain America and anyone he cared about a real and immediate threat.

She wouldn’t go quite so far as to say that she understood his actions, the choices he was making. Even if she wanted to, she was going to need time before she could be anything other than hurt and angry. But, even after spending a sleepless night feeling the Steve shaped hole in her life like a burn, like a weight on her chest, a breathlessly impossible pain, she thought maybe she could try to be understanding.

So when she crossed in front of Steve making her way to a seat at the command meeting the next morning, she did her best not to let him see how badly she was hurting. He was watching her carefully, though, as he stood up to speak.

“We’ve run into a problem with operation reclamation,” he started without preamble, authority and command clear in his voice as everyone gave him their full attention.

“Here,” a number of spots on the map lit up, “are the stable settlements we found. Some have already been brought to the Sanctuary, most have signed the accords and are staying put. We have teams headed out to provide infrastructure and assistance.”

“Here,” a new yellow zone along the east coast lit up, “is the territory controlled by the raiding groups along the coast.”

It was a surprisingly wide swath of territory.

“From what we were able to learn, these people are living in small groups, maybe 15 or 20, and surviving through raiding. As their territory gets raided out, they move outwards and pose a direct threat to the eastern settlements we have found and any that are left out there to find. None that we encountered were interested in the Accords and all of them were extremely hostile and violent.”

“We’ve also learned,” he went on, clearing the map and bringing up a series of photos, “that they are organized. There is no infighting going on between the individual groups, there is leadership there. This is positive, in that this won’t be a matter of taking out hundreds of small groups, but hopefully a matter of making a deal with their leader. To the best of our knowledge, this man is at the center.”

A picture of a man with a metal arm, dressed in worn but tough black gear, his hair long and his eyes masked with black paint took focus on the screen. He did not look like a man to be trifled with.

“Natasha?” Steve turned to Nat, who stood up as Steve took a seat. It looked planned, but Darcy knew better by the expression on Steve’s face. He couldn’t talk about this.

“It seems,” Natasha continued smoothly, “that it is not only some of our greatest allies” she nodded to Sam, “that have survived, but also old enemies. This man is James Buchannan Barnes, better known as the Winter Soldier.”

There were a few noises of surprise and recognition around the table.

“Barnes was a howling commando and a close friend of Captain Rogers during the second World War. He resurfaced as a Hydra agent at least by the 1980’s. We’re mostly working on guess work at this point, but we think he was a product of the Red Room, and was likely kept on ice unless needed. We think he was tasked with a mission just before everything fell apart. Without re-conditioning, there is no telling how much he remembers or what he knows. We do think, however, that his last mission was to kill Captain Rogers.”

“Where are you getting that?” asked Hill, “He didn’t seem to target the Captain when they met.”

“As I said,” Natasha answered, “it has been years since Hydra had a hold of him. The conditioning and the memory wipes have undoubtedly faded, although given what anyone out there has been living through, it is doubtful that has been replaced with anything good. Our theory is based on the messages that we’ve seen being passed.”

She slid through a few more photos of graffiti clearly showing Cap’s symbol along with very violent iconography.

“It appears that the Captain has become the symbol of what we are trying to do, clear territory and establish a government. This has happened far more rapidly than we would have expected. In essence, they don’t want us there, and the Captain and anyone surrounding him has become the target of their anger. Barnes, and by extension the people he rules, are very focused on the Captain.”

She knew full well, even though her gaze was focused directly on her hands, that Steve was looking at her. She continued avoiding his gaze as he stood, not wanting to see what was there.

“The only thing that makes sense,” Steve said, “is for me to head east and see if I can arrange a meeting with Barnes.”

“Okay, I have a question,” Clint stuck his hand up in the air and continued without waiting to be acknowledged, “what are you going to do if you can actually get this meeting set up?”

Steve cut his eyes across to Darcy, “Make a treaty if we can, a different one than the Accords, but hopefully one we can live with. Division of territory.”

“No,” said Darcy at once, and all eyes were on her, “listen,” she was looking at Steve now, “I know I was the one who spearheaded this whole treaty thing, but if there is anything we have learned from Alpha Team’s mission, it’s that we’re not going to be able to accomplish all we need to by peaceful means. Those gangs are living by raiding. They are not farming, they are not self-sustaining. Even if they did agree to a territorial split, they won’t respect it, because they need to constantly move to stay alive. Either they change, sign the Accords and stop raiding, or they are incompatible with the peace we’re trying to make.”

“Lewis is right,” said Hill, “Rogers, put together a team, set up your meeting, but if you can’t get them to sign the Accords, then you get the hell out of there and we’ll plan our attack.”

Steve swallowed heavily once, and then nodded.

+

+

She had been trying, she really had, to respect the decision Steve had made, even though she thought it was the wrong one, but the look on his face as he walked out of command made it impossible.

“Steve,” she called after him just as he turned into an empty hall, and he came to a stop, not turning.

“You moved out,” was what came out first. “You didn’t even talk to me about it, you just moved out.”

He ran a hand through his hair and turned to look at her. “There’s nothing to talk about. You heard Natasha in there. I’m a target, and I won’t paint one on you, not when you’re about to head south into raiding territory.”

“You think I can’t protect myself?” this is not what she had planned on saying.

“I think you shouldn’t have to, not from people that are really after me. God Darce, if anything happened to you because of…” he trailed off, shoving his hands in his pockets and squaring his shoulders, “it’s done.” He said firmly. “And that’s all there is to it.”

And Darcy found she was _angry_.

“You know what Steve? If you really respect me so little that you think you should be able to make this decision without me, without even _talking_ about it, then maybe we _should_ be over.”

He looked at her like she had slapped him, but said nothing.

Darcy let out a frustrated noise. “Listen, I didn’t follow you to start a fight. It’s just that you’re making a hell of a lot of really fucking stupid decisions these days and I thought someone ought to start calling you on it. You’re not going out there to sign a treaty, you’re going out there to go after Bucky. Anyone else could go, and it would probably be far safer. Let someone else do this.”

There was a long stillness.

“Nat told you about Bucky,” he said finally.

She nodded.

“Then how the hell can you ask me not to go after him?”

“I may not feel all that warm and fuzzy about you right now Steve,” said Darcy through gritted teeth, “but it doesn’t mean I don’t want you to stay alive, and I’ll be damned if you’re thinking about that at all.”

She turned on her hell and stormed away before she could say anything else. She wondered how the rift between her and Steve had gotten this wide and how she hadn’t noticed how far apart they were until now.

And she didn’t know if there was any going back.

+

+

It was a relief when she left for the Keep a few days later. She didn’t think she could bear being in the Sanctuary for one more day.

They had decided that, given they were not going to be around for more than a few days, there was no reason to tell the kids until they were both back. They did their best to make polite conversation at meals together, but Darcy knew that they weren’t doing a particularly convincing job.

So setting off south felt like a release.

“Lewis!” Mac swept her up in a one armed hug as she ran out from under the helicopter rotors, “How’ve you been, stranger?”

“Hey,” she said with a grin that she knew was a little strained. Everything felt a little strained these days. She saw Mac raise a questioning brow, but he didn’t push her.

“Mac,” she said as a tall lanky figure followed behind her out of the chopper, “this is Jack.”

“Jack,” Mac took his hand, “You were with shield as well?”

“Naw,” said Jack, as they moved into the Keep, “I’m with Darcy. She kept a bunch of us alive out there for months before the Captain showed up.”

“Really?” said Mac, “that’s got to be a story worth telling.”

“We haven’t exactly had a ton of time for small talk,” said Darcy rolling her eyes. “Mac, why don’t you know where we should drop our gear and then we’ll meet you at communications?”

“There’s always time for small talk Lewis,” said Mac with a grin as he led them to a couple of tents set up near the old generator shed that held the Keep’s communications set up.

“You guys built this?” asked Jack in awe as they walked into the concrete building. It was almost stiflingly hot and hummed with the equipment that was constantly running on a combination of solar power, wind, and generators.

“No need to sound so surprised,” said Mac jovially, “Lewis and I were actually the ones who got the link up and running when she first came down.”

“That had to be a bit of a surprise,” said Jack, flopping into a metal chair in front of a screen showing hazy radar readings, “two idiots out on foot in the apocalypse just knocking on your door.”

“You’re not wrong,” said Mac, casting a sidelong glance at Darcy with an expression she didn’t much feel like decoding, “not exactly a bad one though.”

“Well we better hope our friends to the south are feeling the same way,” said Darcy, “because we’re about to do the same thing.”

“Actually,” said Mac, walking over to a work table strewn with bits of electronics, “I don’t know that we have to. I’ve been working on something and I thought this might be a good chance to test it out.” He held up a fairly non-descript looking black box with a small black button that looked like it might have come off an old iPhone on the top.

Darcy raised an eyebrow, “what happens if I push the button?” she asked cautiously.

“Try it and find out,” said Mac.

Darcy was fairly certain that Mac wasn’t trying to kill her. So she pushed the button.  One side of the box fell open smoothly.

“It touch sensitive,” explained Mac, “won’t open for the dead even if one of them got their hands on it for some reason.”

Inside the box was an old cell phone with a spliced on antenna and a heavy battery pack, a copy of the Accords, and a small metal cylinder which, when Darcy twisted it open, was a refrigerated canister containing a vile of thanatos and a syringe.

“The ultimate survival kit,” said Mac.

Darcy let out a breath as a shiver ran up her spine, “Mac,” she said breathlessly, “We won’t have to send people out…”

“Jesus,” said Jack, as he understood what Darcy was saying, “All we’d need to do is leave them where we know people are going to look.”

“That’s the idea,” said Mac, his usually jovial tone more serious, “I started thinking about it after what happened with Alpha team…I just wish I had…”

“Hey,” Darcy stopped him, “Alpha team knew what they were doing. And we’re never going to be able to keep everyone safe behind walls, but this? This is a good idea Mac.” She smiled up at him, and for the first time in weeks it didn’t feel forced or strained.

+

+

She and Jack and Mac sat around a campfire later that night after eating dinner with the inhabitants of the Keep.

“I think I promised you a drink, Lewis,” said Mac, pulling a flask out of his back pocket and passing it over.

Darcy took a long pull, wincing as it burned its way down her throat. “We should get your moonshine guys to talk to our moonshine guys” said Darcy, passing the flask to Jack, “this stuff tastes a little bit less like dying than ours.”

“I’m just waiting for one of the away teams to find a liquor store where everything isn’t taken or smashed.” Said Jack, “I wasn’t even legal before the world ended. I missed out on all the good stuff.”

“You’re not even legal now,” said Darcy with a grin.

“Birthday’s in two weeks,” said Jack with a smile that was only a little sad. I would have been a milestone for him, probably something he had been looking forward to Before. Didn’t seem to mean much now.

“Happy birthday,” said Mac solemnly, taking the flask back and raising it in a toast. “If you wanted, I could stop you from drinking any of our fine corn liquor before then?”

Darcy snorted with a half suppressed laugh at Jack’s horrified expression.

“He’s kidding,” said Darcy, rolling her eyes.

“I know,” said Jack indignantly, “you guys are just plain ornery, the pair of you. I’m going to go meet some new people for the first time in two years.” Jack grinned at them as he got up. “You’re okay?” he asked Darcy with a raised eyebrow and an expression of concern.

“I’m fine,” she said, feeling unreasonably touched by the young man’s concern, “go have fun.”

Katy, of course, had told Jack about what was going on with her and Steve. But he had never brought it up. Still, he had been excellent at steering the conversation away with the younger kids at mealtimes, making sure Darcy didn’t have to be left alone with him. Little gestures of concern and support. She should tell him, sometime, how much it was helping.

Mac was looking at her carefully. “So you’re okay?” he raised an eyebrow.

Darcy shrugged.

“This have something to do with the way you were obviously avoiding Alpha team on the comms?”

She sighed. “Probably.”

“And you don’t want to talk about it,” said Mac with a smile, passing her the flask.

“I don’t know,” said Darcy, her voice feeling oddly tight. “I’ve been avoiding talking about it I think. The more people I tell, the more real it becomes.”

“Well,” Mac said slowly, “s’kinda hard to hide from reality these days.”

“Steve and I broke up,” she said suddenly, and then let out a half choked laugh, “God, that makes it sound like we were teenagers holding hands in the hallways or something, doesn’t it?”

“I’m sorry,” said Mac, ignoring her attempt to pass off the moment with humor.  “That can’t be easy.”

“It feels sort of stupid to be caught up in my relationship issues when we’re out here trying to, you know, save humanity.” Darcy went on. “I mean, the fact that I’m probably going to die alone doesn’t really rank on the overall scale of things, does it?”

“Hey,” said Mac, turning to her with something like censure in his eyes, “Don’t be stupid Lewis, you’re not going to die alone. Either you and the Captain will work things out,”

Darcy scoffed.

“Or,” Mac plowed forward determinedly, “you’ll find someone else.” And he reached out and gently tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

Darcy froze, and Mac immediately dropped his hand into his lap. But he didn’t apologize.

“I’m not saying it’ll be me,” he said, although Darcy thought that the confident expression on his face was saying something slightly different, “I’m just saying, someone like you is never going to be short of options, if you want them.”

She turned to look at him, barely inches of space between them on the bench they sat on. It was an odd feeling, but Mac was right. Steve had drawn a line on things. She was free to do as she pleased.

She hadn’t kissed anyone but Steve in more than three years now, and her love life Before hadn’t exactly been anything to write home about. And Mac was attractive and funny and _safe_ in a way that Steve would never be.

And she was angry at Steve for making this choice, and she was so desperately sad, and Mac’s eyes were so kind, and she leaned forward just a few inches and kissed him.

It was a brief thing. Chaste, really. And it wasn’t as weird as she had thought it was going to be.

Mac smiled at her as she pulled away.

“I get it,” he said after a moment, their heads still bent close together, “And I’m not going to press you. Guess I just figure life’s too short not to throw your hat in the ring, right?”

She smiled at him, and thought for the first time since everything had started disintegrating, that there could be a different life for her. Something quieter and calmer.

“Darcy!” the moment was broken as Jack sprinted over to them, sparing a quick glance at their proximity on the bench, but barely pausing before barreling forward. “It’s Steve,” he said, “Sanctuary called. They’ve lost contact.”

Darcy was on her feet immediately. “Get me the coordinates,” she said at once. “Mac, I’m gonna need that chopper in the air in ten minutes.” She called over her shoulder as she ran for her gear, not even pausing to register the look of resignation on his face.

There was no time to head north and pick up reinforcements, and the Keep couldn’t spare any more of their capable fighters, not with Mac and the chopper gone, so it was just her and Jack sitting in the body with Mac in the cockpit as they raced eastward, the running ghoulishly illuminating small swarms of the dead as the flew low to keep their eye on navigation. It wasn’t easy in the pitch black, but they set down about half a mile away from the coordinates that Sanctuary had sent them, where Steve had radioed in a mayday before his signal cut out.

“Darce,” Jack huffed in a low voice as they ran across the uneven terrain towards the signal, “don’t you think we ought to slow down here?”

“We’ve lost more than an hour already,” said Darcy tightly, “We don’t have the time to slow down.”

“We probably don’t have a lot of time for dealing with walkers either,” said Mac from behind them, “and at this pace they’d be coming for us fast. We won’t see them until they’re almost on top of us.”

At that, Darcy checked her speed a little. From the moment that Jack had said they’d lost Steve’s signal, she’d been on autopilot; not thinking, but acting. There was a fire running up her spine that was shouting at her to find him, keep him safe. It drowned out entirely all the anger and sadness and even that little wistful bit of longing for someone safer.

It was also drowning out good sense, it seemed.

“You’re right,” she said, slowing to a walk, “sorry, you’re right.”

They moved more quietly now. They were on the outskirts of a small town, clearly deserted and half in ruins. As they crossed from grass onto cracked and pitted asphalt, they had barely a moments warning, by the smell more than anything else, of a group of five walkers headed for them out of an alley.

Darcy held a finger to her lips, wary that whoever had got the drop on Steve may well be in earshot, and pulled the two blades strapped to her thighs from their sheathes. There was nothing more than the low noises of efforts and the dull thuds of half decomposed bodies hitting the ground as they swiftly cut their way through the small group.

“Just like old times,” said Jack, with a grim sort of smile as they kept moving down the street.

“You guys are nuts,” said Mac. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, that was seriously impressive and you can be on my team any time. But you guys are nuts.”

“I’m sure you’ve seen crazier in your time,” said Darcy somewhat absently, her eyes scanning the ground in front of them for any evidence that Steve had been there.

“And let me tell you,” said Jack, “the Black Widow makes us look positively tame.”

“The world ends and I’m still stuck with all the crazy people with code names,” said Mac, rolling his eyes.

“Stop,” whispered Darcy, “Look.”

Around the corner and well down the street, filtering out of the broken window of a concrete parking structure, came a dim and flickering panel of light.

“If we head around the back,” suggested Jack, “we’ll be able to get closer before we get spotted.”

And then, through the still night air, came the low strangled sound of what was definitely someone crying out in pain.

“Steve,” Darcy whispered, before taking off towards the noise at a dead run.

“Or not,” said Jack resignedly, pulling his gun and following after.

“Nuts,” hissed Mac under his breath as he followed at a distance, keeping to the shadows.

It happened so fast that, in trying to explain it afterwards, Darcy had a hard time remembering the details. She burst through entrance to the garage without any heed for cover or secrecy. She registered that Steve was slumped against a concrete pillar, heavy chains binding his hands, his face bruised and bleeding, the black of his fatigues no doubt hiding worse.

And she registered the silver glint of the arm of the man standing in front of him, wheeling towards her and drawing his weapon, but she didn’t think, she didn’t stop, she just squeezed off a clean shot, cutting high on his thigh and kept running. The pain and surprise of the shot was enough to send his bullet off to the left of her and gave her just long enough to throw a solid left hook to his jawand bring the butt of her gun sharply across the base of his skull.

“Stop!” Steve’s ragged voice cut through the haze of purpose. Her gun was trained on the collapsed form of Bucky Barnes. She let out a breath and holstered her gun.

“I won’t shoot him,” she said, bending to pick up the key sitting on the ground a few feet away and moving to undo the padlock holding Steve’s chains.

“You did shoot him,” Steve pointed out. He sounded unreasonably calm, even a little impressed, but incredibly distant.

“He was going to shoot me first,” Darcy said indignantly, before realizing the absurdity of it and letting out a breath. “Are you okay?” she tried. Her voice was still shaking with adrenaline.

“I’m fine,” he stood carefully, clearly favoring his right leg, “we should get him secured.”

Darcy looked back over her shoulder at Jack, who was looking at them with a sharply raised eyebrow. “You know,” he said, moving over to help Steve. “You guys _suck_ at dramatic reunions.”

“Where’s Mac?” asked Darcy, pointedly ignoring both Jack and the tightening of Steve’s shoulders at his words.

“Here,” he moved out from behind a wall and walked over. “Thought probably all three of us didn’t need to run in guns first. Captain.” Mac nodded with an admirably even expression under the circumstances.

As the adrenaline was starting to recede, Darcy was beginning to realize how acutely awkward this situation could get in a hurry.

Steve, it was becoming clear, wasn’t going to let anything so trivial as a near death experience and a dramatic rescue change his mind about them. And Darcy was about three steps away from getting very very angry about that, once the relief of seeing Steve alive and relatively unharmed sank in.

And, of the conscious people in the room, Steve was the only one who was not aware that just hours ago, Mac had been kissing his very very recently ex-girlfriend.

Add the unconscious half brainwashed assassin slash post-apocalyptic warlord slash Steve’s former best friend now tied to a concrete pillar, Steve’s jacket stemming the flow of blood from the gunshot wound in his leg, and she didn’t see how this situation could get any worse.

“That your girl Rogers?” the gravelly, slurred words of Bucky Barnes at very least forestalled what was sure to be a very awkward conversation, “She’s got a hell of an arm on her.”

Every head in the room was immediately glued to the situation.

“I’m going to enjoy taking her apart. I’m gonna make you watch Rogers. Make you watch her bleed…”

In two swift steps, Steve walked up to him, cracked his right fist into the side of the other man’s head, and turned on his heel, storming out of the building without so much as a backward glance.

“So,” said Jack after a pause. “That went well.”

+

+

It didn’t take long to find him, she heard the skitter of metal on pavement as Steve kicked the remnants of his communicator aside and bent to pick up his shield from where it lay on the ground. He absently wiped a smear of blood of its rim before he stiffened and whirled around to face her.

“Go back inside,” he said shortly, “the gunshots will draw out any of the undead in the area.”

“Oh you’re definitely right Steve, not only should I never have pulled the trigger on the man who was beating you within an inch of your life, but I should also certainly huddle inside for fear of a few lousy walkers,” the venom was positively dripping from her lips. Her anger, obviously, was burning right through the last of her adrenaline. “What is _wrong_ with you,” she shouted.

“What is wrong with me?” Steve responded incredulously, taking a step towards her, “what is wrong with _you_? You risk the helicopter, two key assets and _your life_ just because my comm cut out? You’re smarter than that.”

Darcy couldn’t contain the frustrated noise that exploded past her lips.

“ _And,_ ” Steve pushed closer into her personal space, fury blazing in his eyes, “did you not even _hear_ the command briefing? That is the Winter Soldier in there. You came in gun first without a plan. He could have killed you. If you were any less damn lucky, he _would_ have. And now he knows your face and that you came for me and this is _exactly_ what I was trying to prevent. God _damn_ you Darcy.” His hands closed with a bruising grip around her shoulders and, this close, she could see that it wasn’t so much fury that was driving him right now, it was fear. She had never seen Steve so afraid.

“God help me,” she said slowly, remembering the first time she had seen the way that Steve could lose control, “I’d do it again.”

He looked at her for a long moment. He wanted to kiss her, she thought. Or maybe strangle her. But instead he pulled himself back with a harsh breath, turning away from her.

“Please Darcy,” he said finally, his back to her, his voice low and defeated. “Just please, go inside.”

She thought of a million things to say. She thought about reminding him that he had tried to keep her safe by controlling her decisions before and had learned that it was a bad idea. She thought about reminding him that she loved him, and all his self-sacrificing bullshit wasn’t going to change that overnight. She thought about asking when she had stopped being his partner and started becoming a burden.

But Steve didn’t turn back to her. Steve didn’t say a thing.

So she turned and walked back towards the garage.


	7. If We Were Proud

Some may have blamed us that we cease to speak

Of things we spoke of in our verses early,

Saying: a lovely voice is such as such;

Saying: that lady's eyes were sad last week,

Wherein the world's whole joy is born and dies;

Saying: she hath this way or that, this much

Of grace, this way or that, this much

Of grace, this little misericorde;

Ask us no further word;

If we were proud, then proud to be so wise

Ask us no more of all the things ye heard;

We may not speak of them, they touch us nearly.

 

\- The Fault of It (Ezra Pound)

 

Steve didn’t come back to the garage. Darcy assumed he was running a sweep of the area and avoiding his feelings, and told the other two as much. They weren’t going anywhere until their hostage woke up and the Captain came back anyways.

Feeling exhausted and wrung out and heavy with sadness, Darcy managed a few fitful hours of sleep.

When she slowly regained awareness, she was stiff and sore. Thin morning light was cutting across the garage, and Bucky Barnes was awake.

Darcy pulled herself to a sitting position. A few feet away, Steve was sitting silently on an overturned crate in front of their chained captive, looking at him steadily.

Beside her, up against the wall, Mac was asleep. Jack stood near the door, clearly keeping one eye on the street and one eye on the standoff going on just behind him.

“Why the hell should I trust you,” his voice was still ragged and sharp, but not so full of rage as it had been last night. There was an edge of sadness and confusion that she hadn’t stopped to notice before.

To be fair, he was trying to kill her at the time.

“Because you know me,” said Steve with a deep exhaustion. She wondered how long they had been at this. Quite a while, if the defeated slope of Steve’s shoulders were any indication. “You said it yourself, the minute you heard there was a man with a shield in your territory, you _knew_.”

“I knew you were dangerous,” he was snarling like a caged animal, “I knew you were a threat. I knew you were coming to destroy us. You’re my target. You’re a target. I…”

“But you knew who I was, didn’t you?” Steve plodded onwards doggedly.

Darcy wrapped her arms around her legs and tucked her chin on her knees.

It was hard to watch.

She remembered that old saw about the definition of insanity and found herself hoping that all of this repetition would start leading to some new results, because she knew perfectly well that, if it came down to it, she would have to be the one to call off the interrogation and force Steve to walk away from the only person who had ever known Steve Before. Not just before the collapse, but Steve’s Before. The last time Steve made an easy decision.

“I…” Bucky drew an odd hitching breath and Steve’s head jerked up, searching the other man’s face. “I think I fell. It was cold…”

“Yes,” Darcy sat upright abruptly at the change in Steve’s tone. could see the strain it was costing him to keep his voice level and calm, “You fell from a train. I couldn’t stop it. I thought you were dead. Hydra got a hold of you, wiped your memory as best they could, programmed you to kill for them…Buck…I’m so _sorry_.”

“End of the line,” Bucky half muttered, his gaze cast off to the left as if he could remember by looking hard enough.

“I’m with you to the end of the line, Pal,” Steve wore the phrase like an old shoe, clearly it meant something to the both of them.

Bucky’s eye’s snapped back to Steve, wide and alarmed. “Steve? S’That you?”

They sat there for a good long moment, just looking at each other before Steve let out a choked sort of sobbing noise, “Yeah Buck,” his voice was thick and hoarse, “it’s me.”

“What…” he jerked against the chains binding him to the concrete pillar, “what the hell is going on here.”

“What do you remember?” Steve asked eagerly, leaning closer over his knees.

“I’m not soft,” Bucky cut out harshly, but there was a curiosity and a tentative trust in his expression now, “I know there are things that I’ve lost, I just... I was in D.C. when everything went to hell. I was supposed…I was supposed to do something.” He looked up at Steve with a dull sort of realization, “I was supposed to kill you, wasn’t I? “ He paused, swallowing heavily, “But the world ended and I lost the mission. All I could do was avoid the dead. They were everywhere.”

Darcy though she saw him shudder. She couldn’t exactly blame him. She couldn’t imagine being trapped in a city with a herd moving through.

“I started finding other people. People who had holed up and waited it out, or were coming into the city from elsewhere. Civilians. they weren’t going to make it.”

“So you made this happen,” said Steve, “All the cells across the east coast, the communications, this is all your doing.” He sounded excited, optimistic in a way she hadn’t heard from him in a long time.

Bucky nodded carefully.

“And what about Before?” Steve asked, pressing onwards, “Before D.C.?”

“I don’t know,” he finally admitted, “Sometimes I remember…but it doesn’t matter does it? Nobody’s Before matters anymore, why should mine?”

“It matters,” said Steve firmly, “It matter to _me_.”

“Were we…” he paused, “Was it always like this? Have we always been soldiers?”

Steve let out a heavy breath, “Mostly, yeah.”

They paused, just looking at each other for a long moment.

“So,” Bucky finally said, “you gonna untie me?”

“Depends,” said Steve warily, “you still want to kill me?”

The slightest hint of a grin cut across Bucky’s face, instantly making him look years younger and much less foreboding. “A little bit,” he said evenly. “But it seems like I might as well hear what you and your people have to say before I do.”

“Fair enough,” said Steve with a wry expression, reaching out to unchain his friend.

“Captain,” said Jack quietly from behind him, “you sure that’s a good idea?” He turned to Bucky, “No offense man, you do seem a bit less murderous now that you’ve figured out that the Captain isn’t out to kill you, but in the last 12 hours you’ve tried really hard to kill two people that are very important to me.”

“Jack…” Steve started.

“No,” Bucky interrupted, “It’s a fair point. S’good that your people aren’t stupid.” he turned to Jack, “You’re right, I came here to kill him” he tilted his head towards Steve, “First time my people started talking about some guy with a shield, I wanted to kill him. I should have known, it never really made sense to seek out a fight. It was like…following orders.”

“So who’s to say you won’t keep following those orders, whether you want to or not, if we let you go?” asked Jack warily.

“Don’t think I was ever supposed to remember,” Buck wrinkled his brow as if fighting off a headache. “The minute I remembered him, _my_ memories, not a mission, it just…faded.”

“So now you’re just harmless?” asked Jack in disbelief.

“Harmless?” Bucky raised a challenging eyebrow, “I’m still the guy who controls the entire human population of the eastern seaboard boy. Just because I’ve curbed the irrational impulse for violence doesn’t mean I can’t make a rational decision that you and your people are threat.”

This, apparently, satisfied Jack, who nodded and lowered his weapon. Steve, though, sat back with a wounded expression.

Bucky let out a long sigh. “Look, you’re…somebody Rogers. But just because I’m not going to follow some god damned programming that was shoved in my head doesn’t mean I know you and it doesn’t mean I trust you. I got people out there same as you. I’m trying to do my best for them, same as you. Maybe we can work something out, maybe we can’t. But there’s not exactly a hell of a lot of us left, by my count, so I’ll at least hear you out.”

Some of the weight was sinking back on Steve’s shoulders, but he nodded and unlocked the chains anyways.

“This is Jack,” said Steve as Bucky worked the stiffness out of his right arm. “And that’s Darcy and Mac,” he gestured over to them. Mac was now awake and standing next to Darcy. She hadn’t even noticed.

“Sorry about trying to kill you,” said Bucky in her general direction, “you’ve got a hell of a left hook.”

“Sorry about shooting you in the leg,” she responded evenly.

Bucky shrugged as if to say it was nothing. And really, he seemed awfully un phased by it and the wound seemed to have stopped bleeding.

“You know what’s weird,” said Bucky as he let Steve help him to his feet, “Don’t have more than a few hazy half memories of you, Rogers. But somehow the fact that you’d go for a girl who shoots first is thoroughly unsurprising.”

“That’s not…” Steve began awkwardly as Darcy pointedly turned her attention elsewhere. “She’s not my girl.” And damned if she was ever going to be ready for the way that stung, “But she does know more about politics than I do, so she’s probably better to explain thing to you.”

Bucky raised a disbelieving eyebrow at Steve, who made a half shrugging motion in return before letting out an exasperated sigh and turning toward her. “All yours,” he said gesturing towards Bucky with a pained expression.

She thought that Bucky was trying very hard not to laugh at them. It was odd. They were strangers, really. The man who Steve remembered was long gone, and the even if Bucky could remember the Steve Rogers he had known, Steve was a different man now. But they still had such a clear and unconscious read on each other. She wondered if either of them recognized it. It would probably have made Steve feel better about the whole situation.

Although, to be fair, Darcy thought he was handling it pretty well.

Darcy pulled a folded copy of the Accords from a pocket in her pants.

“We’re trying to build something here,” she said simply, handing them over and watching him carefully as he read over them, “and this is how we’re trying to build it.”

Bucky finished reading the brief lines on the paper and looked back up at her with a look that was oddly reminiscent of Steve’s _who do you think you’re kidding_ look.

“And you and your people can’t agree to it,” she finished.

Bucky’s “surprised and impressed” look was quite similar to Steve’s as well. If she hadn’t believed what she had been told before, there was no denying now that this man in front of her, whatever he had been through since, came from the same place Steve did, was made in the same crucible.

It gave her an advantage in negotiation, but it was also frightening. Because she knew better than most exactly how far Steve Rogers would go to do what he thought was right.

“So why this charade of a negotiation then,” Bucky drawled at her.

“Because I think there’s another agreement we can sign.” It was a plan that had been buzzing through her head since they hit the ground.

“And why would I do that?”

“Because you need us,” she said firmly. “You’re already running out of places to raid. Fields won’t produce food forever without cultivation, canned food goes off eventually. Your population is going to keep growing as your resources dwindle. All you can do it move outwards, and that puts everyone trying to establish self-sustaining settlements at risk.”

Bucky looked back at her levelly, not acknowledging her words, but not denying them either, which was good enough for her. “So if it’s going to come to a fight, why put it off?”

“Because,” she said, pointedly not looking at Steve, “We’ve got no right to impose any particular kind of order on anybody that doesn’t want it. But make no mistake Barnes, if we don’t make an agreement here, there will be a fight, and we will win it. Because we _do_ have a right to protect our people from real and immediate threats.”

She spared just the barest glance out of the corner of her eye at Steve. He was leaning against a concrete pillar a few feet away, looking at her with something like awe.

“And,” she continued, dragging her attention back to Bucky, “we need you.”

She could see the subtle stiffening of Steve’s shoulders out of the corner of her eye. She hadn’t exactly discussed this with him. Then again, he hadn’t exactly been open to discussion.

“You’ve got, by our count, at least 600 people moving around the east coast. You know the terrain, you know where the herds build up, where they disintegrate, you know how to avoid them and how to fight them and how to know when you should. And maybe most importantly, you’ve managed to locate, repair and maintain a veritable fleet of maneuverable vehicles. This tells me you know where to find the right materials and you know what to do with them. How hard would it be for your people to start putting together solar generators? Hydroponic systems? hydro-electric turbines?” Bucky was looking at her with an even curiosity, and she knew at once her hunch had been right, so she pressed her advantage.

“Everybody has to help with clearing the dead, that’s non-negotiable, but I suspect with the weapons we can give you, you won’t have a problem with that. Beyond that, we can draw a border. We _keep_ that border by trading. We sell you the food and supplies you need to survive, you sell us the tech to make it easier.”

Darcy looked at Bucky even and unflinching as he processed her offer. She could feel that everyone else was holding their breath.

Finally, Bucky grinned at her. “So you got a brain and a left hook, hey?” He cast a look back at Steve that Darcy couldn’t see, but it made him frown and cross his arms.

“I can’t make this decision alone,” he said finally, “I have some people I need to talk to. Give me two days and I’ll meet you at the Keep.”

“You…you know where the Keep is?” Jack burst out in surprise.

Bucky raised an eyebrow, “Not all of us have been living in a bunker up north kid,” he said laconically, and Jack’s expression shifted from surprised to severely impressed.

“Fine,” Steve finally interjected, pushing away from the wall. “But if we don’t see you at the end of two days, we won’t have a choice Buck…”

“Don’t,” Bucky cut out harshly. “Don’t kid yourself Rogers, that’s not who I am anymore.

Steve nodded evenly, but Darcy could see what it was costing him.

“You have two days,” he said, “and then we will have no choice but to consider you and your people a direct threat.”

Bucky nodded, turned on his heel, and walked away, a slight limp the only sign that he had been shot in the leg the previous day.

As they trekked back to the helicopter, Jack and Mac tactfully scouted ahead leaving Darcy and Steve walking in silence by themselves.

“It’s a good deal,” Steve finally said stiffly.

“Oh, so we’re going to talk about politics now?” said Darcy, more sharply than she had intended. “Didn’t go so well for us last time.”

Steve let out a deep sigh. “I was angry that you wouldn’t at least look at things from my side,” he said, his voice drained of all rancor, sounding nothing more than tired. “And I will admit that it made my choice…easier, in some ways. We both had the best intentions. I can see how important your way of doing things is, I can see how it _works_. But I was right too.”

“I know,” she said in a small voice, “I get it. I wasn’t on the mic Steve, but I was there.” he looked surprised, “You think I wasn’t finding reasons to walk by comms just like you always do every time I’m out here,” she paused. “Or, at least you did.”

“Darcy,” he said, barely above a breath, “I’m not…I’m not _angry_ anymore. But it’s still…How can you not see that it’s still the right choice? You heard what Bucky…what he said about you. You didn’t have to hear all that came before it.”

“And how can _you_ not see that I can _handle_ it. I _did_ handle it.”

“And how do you think it makes me feel that I put you in a situation where you _had_ to handle this?”

“You _put_ me in the situation? How can you…” and suddenly she was so bone tired of this same conversation again and again and all she wanted was to lash out, to _get_ out. “Maybe Mac was right,” she said dully.

“About what?” and she could hear the strain in his voice. She wondered if Jack had said anything to him already.

“Maybe I _should_ want other things.” She paused, “I kissed him, you know.”

Steve paused, just a half second hitch in his stride before he kept walking.

“Maybe you should,” he finally said, his voice sounding thick and forced.

But even now, she couldn’t inflict that kind of pain, “But I _don’t_ ,” she finally said, holding back tears.

“Darce, please.” Steve stopped still now, not looking at her, but she felt his attention on her like a magnet, “I hate seeing you hurt.”

“You’re the one that did it,” she finally choked out, and she strode onwards, leaving him behind her without a backwards glance.


	8. What These Ithakas Mean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe it's actually done... Thanks so much to everyone who stuck with this angsty mess. You have no idea how much your comments and support along the way have helped.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you are destined for.

But do not hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you are old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you have gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

 

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you would not have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

 

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

 

\- Constantine P. Cavafy (Ithaka)

 

It was 48 hours of tense and silent waiting before Bucky and another man approached the Keep at breakneck speed on vehicles that looked as if they at least used to be motorcycles.

Her and Steve and Jack walked out of the gate to meet them.

“Rogers,” Bucky greeted with a cool nod, “this is Ajax,” he nodded to the enormous bearded man standing beside him.

“You’ve made your decision?” asked Steve, only a hint of anxiousness seeping into his question.

“We have some terms of our own,” said Bucky, “if you’re ready to hear ‘em?” he tipped his head at Darcy.

“Go ahead,” she said evenly.

“Borders are not going to be an easy issue,” he said stiffly, “we’ve got dozens of groups with particular patterns and resting places. I’m the only one that knows where they are, your command is the only place that’s going to have all the data on other settlements and their territory.”

“So you’ll come north and work it out with Commander Hill,” said Darcy evenly, “next?”

“We need communications. It’s not the equipment that’s the problem, it’s a knowledge of your systems and codes and someone your people are going to listen to. You need to send a contact back with Ajax to set up communication and stay until the borders are drawn and the treaty is signed.”

“Alright,” said Darcy, “We’ll have to talk about who we can send, but we can send someone.”

“Darcy,” Jack interrupted, and Darcy shut her eyes knowing exactly what was coming next and not wanting to hear it, “It’s got to be me.”

He was right. She knew his was right. He knew their communication equipment, he knew their protocol, he was well respected and trusted in command but not indispensable to their own efforts. And he could handle himself.

She let out a low breath. “It makes sense,” she finally said steadily. “Steve?”

Steve looked at her for a long moment, as if unsure if she wanted him to stop this from happening, but in the end he knew as well as she did that this was the right choice. “Jack can handle it,” he said finally. “It’s a good choice.”

The pride she felt in the tall young man standing next to her was almost enough to sooth the sting of losing him. Almost.

“And,” Bucky went on, “we want someone who can synthesize and weaponize your drug. We want to control our own production and our own tactics. We’ll work to clear our borders, but we’ll do it our way.”

“Not a problem,” Darcy agreed immediately, “we said the drug was yours whether you sign an agreement or not. Anything else?”

“You agree that your people don’t come on our land except to trade, we’ll make the same agreement. Those are our conditions. Give us that and we’ll agree to your terms.” he paused, turning to face Steve without quite looking him in the eye, “And I’ll spread the word that you and your people are not to be harmed.”

Steve looked over to Darcy, who nodded. He extended a hand to Bucky. “That’s a square deal Sargent Barnes.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow at him as he took his hand, “You look like you’re about to blow an aneurism callin’ me that Rogers.”

“There’s a lot of things that take getting used to in the post apocalypse,” Steve managed with a wry smile, “I’ll manage.”

+

+

The noise of the helicopter as the blades began turning made tearful goodbyes difficult.

It meant that she could avoid saying much to Mac as she left. Still, she was leaving, and there was no plan for her to return. By Mac’s ever so slightly sad smile, she thought he knew that even if she did, it wouldn’t be for him.

Darcy was grateful for the noise and the haste of it, really. She didn’t want to hear what Steve was saying to Jack as he clapped the other man on the shoulder and shook his hand solemnly.

It was hard enough, as she had to stand on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around his shoulders, to keep herself in check. “I’d say be careful,” she said to him, “but I know you are.”

“You and Steve taught me how,” he said against her ear as he hugged her back hard. She tried her best to ignore the hitch in his voice. “Darce,” he went on, “I didn’t want to bring it up with Steve, he’s so protective, but Katy…”

“I know,” she said, “She’s the right choice too. Not just because she should be with you, but because she could jerry rig a titration system out of plastic straws and bottle caps.”

Jack laughed, “Yeah, she’s pretty great.”

Darcy pulled away with a smile. “I’ll be seeing you,” she said, giving his hand a squeeze as she pulled away.

Neither Steve nor she said a word about it on the flight north, but she sat next to him on the floor of the chopper and he slung an arm around her shoulder and she knew for at least a brief moment they were united in something.

+

+

“Steve,” she stopped him just before they were about to walk into command, Bucky pausing behind them with a tilt of his head, “If we’re sending someone east with Jack…”

He let out a heavy sigh. “Do you want me suggest someone else?” he said tiredly, “we can try. But you know that…”

“No, I know. Katy should go…” she interrupted.

“Feels wrong, after getting them all the way up here, doesn’t it?” he said dully.

Darcy could only nod, and they moved forward into command.

“Lewis, Rogers,” Hill called out as soon as they entered, “welcome home. Good to see you in one piece Rogers.”

He nodded, “Commander Hill, this is Sergeant James Barnes. He speaks for the people on the east coast, and he’s agreed to make a treaty with us.”

“Good,” Hill actually looked visibly pleased. Having Wilson around was doing wonders for her personality. “Pleased to have you here Barnes. I hear you kept a good number of people alive out there. It’s a real…”

Hill cut herself off as Natasha walked into command and both she and Bucky caught sight of each other and froze solid.

“Natalia,” Bucky said finally. And then, “is…is that right?”

She nodded evenly, her unreadable façade falling back into place. “Yes. It’s…good to see you James.”

Hill cleared her throat. “I understand, Sergeant Barnes, that you have a history with some of our people. Officially, though, any records that SHIELD may have had from Before are gone. As far as we’re concerned, no one’s Before matters. All we’re concerned about is moving forward. You brought your maps?” she asked, briskly pushing past the uncomfortable silence and gesturing to the folded papers Bucky was carrying.

With the real business of drawing borders in front of them, much of the rest of command was no longer required, and Darcy slipped out to go find Katy.

She didn’t need to look for long, as she found Katy leaning against the wall outside of what had been hers and Steve’s room and was now hers alone, looking harried and tense.

“Katy?” Darcy asked questioningly as she approached.

“Jack didn’t come back,” she said at once, “and you didn’t come find me. Just tell me. Please. Just say it.”

Darcy saw at once her mistake. “Oh no, Katy, no. He’s fine. He’s at the Keep.”

Katy blew out a shaky breath “Well you could have radioed that in,” she said tersely, but Darcy could see her relief plainly.

“Come on,” Darcy pushed open her door, “we’ve got some things to talk about.”

Katy perched on the edge of Darcy’s bed. Darcy knew, intellectually, that Katy was almost 19, and far older than she should be for her years, but she could still clearly see the 15 year old girl she had first met; bookish and fiercely intelligent, but unsure of herself, shy and ungainly, the curve of her face still ever so slightly soft and her limbs coltish and clumsy.

She forced herself to look, to really look, at the woman in front of her, honed to a sharp edge, brilliant and beautiful, and so whole in herself. She had left Darcy behind her long ago, she thought. All of them, all of her ragtag group of children had moved passed her in their understanding of the world they lived in. Inevitable really, the way the younger generation was always faster to adapt.

Darcy let out a heavy breath. “Jack is going east to set up communications for the people out there. We’re making a treaty.”

“How long,” was all Katy asked, her featured composed.

“We don’t know, as long as it takes for things to be settled.”

Katy stood up abruptly, “You can’t stop me,” she said solidly, “even if I have to walk every step of the way, you can’t stop me from going.”

Darcy’s smile was both sadder and not as sad as she would have expected. “I know,” she said, reaching out and taking the younger woman’s hand, “we want to send you along with him, set them up to start producing Thanatos, help them develop weapons.”

“Oh,” said Katy a bit hollowly, the wind taken out of her sails leaving her deflated, “well now I’m just sort of terrified,” she smiled back at Darcy. “Does Steve know about this?”

“Oh he hates it just as much as I do,” said Darcy, “but we both know that you’re the best for the job. You can handle this. He trusts you, and so do I.”

“Thanks,” and Darcy could see her eyes welling up with emotion. She knew full well how important Steve’s approval and trust was to her.

‘What about you?” Katy went on, “you must have talked things out with Steve.”

Darcy dropped her head, hiding her expression, which she was sure would betray too much. “We talked,” said Darcy slowly, “at least up until the point where there was nothing more to talk about. Things have changed, I suppose.” she finished with a shrug.

“But Darcy, you can’t just…”

“The world keeps changing,” said Darcy with her best attempt at a brave smile, “Steve is of the opinion that we don’t work anymore, not with the way things are. Maybe things will shift again, maybe they won’t, but I shouldn’t have to fight so hard.” It came out as more of a question than a statement.

Katy regarded her steadily for a long moment, “Darce, you and Steve have been fighting through mountains of shit for each other for years. Why would you stop now?”

+

+

Katy’s words were still running through her head as she headed back to command after eating a rushed dinner. Hill and Bucky were still bent over his maps. Slowly, a picture of the surprisingly vast territory the half broken man in front of them had controlled for more than three years was taking shape on the screen on the wall.

“Lewis,” said Hill without looking up as she came in, “good. Rogers still here?”

Steve pushed away from the wall in the corner where Darcy hadn’t notice him as she came in, “Still here.” he acknowledged.

“Lewis, you missed a call from the Keep.” Hill went on, “Mac says he’s made contact with our friend to the south.”

“His black box worked?” asked Darcy, all of a sudden electrified with excitement.

“Better than we could have hoped. Not even three days after they set out a few within range,” Hill unbent enough to give Darcy a tired but pleased smile, “looks like there are going to be some more treaties on the table. We’re sending a team south, when we head back down to the Keep,” said Hill. “They seem to be in better shape than most that we have found, but they’re all civilians. We need to get them some better tech and some training to start clearing bigger numbers while taking fewer losses.” She paused, just for a fraction of a second, “Rogers is going to lead a team down.”

So, he was leaving altogether then. She couldn’t feel anything but a dull, numb weight sitting on her chest. It would maybe be easier in some ways. He was making a decision for them again. How was she supposed to fight for him if he wasn’t here, even if she wanted to?

Although, as she watched Bucky stiffen as Steve spoke, and then relax and turn his focus back to potting on the map as Hill confirmed that he would be leaving, she thought there was probably more than one tense situation Steve was looking to avoid.

“It also means,” Hill went on, “that we need more drop teams ready for active duty.”

“Right,” said Darcy, pulling her focus back, “I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

“We’ve got to get more people out there more often. We’ve already lost some of the blue zone to the south as the herd is starting to filter into the mountains. Natasha has recommended Tess and Eric for training.”

There was a stiff silence. They were still only 13. It didn’t mean the same thing that it did before, and she knew that those kids knew the stakes on the outside better than most of the grown adults here.

“Hill, don’t you think they’re a little young?” it was Steve that spoke first. The question was reasonable enough, but the tone was dripping with venom.

“Yes,” Hill said quickly, “but it’s not as if we have endless options here. Frankly, from what Natasha says, Tess is by far the best we have right now. I’m caught between putting kids who, in any normal circumstances should still be in school, into combat training, or passing them over for people who are older but far more likely to get killed out there because they can’t hack it.” She paused, taking a breath. When she spoke again her voice was calmer. “We all have hard decisions to make these days,” she said, “but they’re your kids, really. This one is yours.”

There was a long pause. Steve was looking over at Darcy, for once whatever was between them didn’t seem to matter, as they both felt the weight of what Hill was asking of them in exactly the same way.

And then the perimeter alarm blared.

Every head in command turned to the screen on the wall in unison. A red blinking light showed that a sensor had been tripped well within the blue zone, only four kilometers or so outside of the Sanctuary.

“How the hell did anything get that far in without being detected,” Steve exclaimed, as he narrowed the view to a close up of the detected threat.

“They didn’t,” Bucky was watching with a detached sort of interest, “That close to you, must have cleared it early, right? When your people were still figuring these things out?”

Hill nodded in acknowledgement.

“Saw it a lot out east, you send someone to clear a building, they see a locked door and no way in hell they’re going to risk opening it when they can raid the place just as easily without. No one’s thinking long term. No one’s figured out yet that in another year, those things’ll still be in there just hungrier. And then wood rots, metal rusts, and a bunch of people end up shambling around draggin’ their guts in their hands.” He sounded almost casual in the way he related the information, but Darcy could see the glint of his articulated metal fingers as the clenched and unclenched against the table.

“He’s right,” said Darcy, pointing up at the map, “they’re just outside of a town. Must’ve been locked in somewhere until now.”

“There must be at least 30 of them,” said Steve tensely, looking at the computer readouts, “We’ve got patrols out there who aren’t prepared to deal with that.”

“Nat and Clint just left for a supply run this afternoon,” said Hill, “they’re farther away than we are right now. I’d hesitate to send any of our other teams alone against that many, and we only have the two other last marks.”

“We’ll go,” said Darcy at once, gesturing at Steve, “we can handle this.”

Hill looked at them appraisingly as Steve raised an eyebrow at her. She stared back at him evenly, dared him to pull the same sort of bullshit he’d been pulling in front of Hill.

And whatever he saw made him keep his mouth shut. He simply nodded.

“Go now,” said Hill abruptly, “I’ll get the word out to the patrols to stay clear.”

+

+

It had been more than a year since Darcy and Steve had gone out like this, dropped into a horde of the undead together with blades drawn and no one at their backs but each other.

But whatever else they were or had been, they could do _this_ together, and they could do it well.

Steve had been right. They flew low over the small group of the dead, counting about 30 before they skidded to ground about 100 feet away. They wanted to be noticed, so there was no point in making a subtle entrance. The horde followed the sound, turned, and started lumbering through the trees up a shallow slope toward them.

Steve looked over at her cautiously, “So,” he said stiffly, “how d’you want to…”

“Divide and conquer?” Darcy interrupted, drawing the air powered dart gun she had managed to grab on their way out. Both her and Steve had only five shots each. There was going to be no clean, long distance sweep of this group.

“Divide and conquer,” Steve agreed with what almost looked like a grin.

They split and ran in opposing diagonals down the slope, flanking the group and succeeding in splitting their attention. Darcy quickly brought down the five of the rotting corpses with her darts, leaving about a dozen still lumbering towards her.

A swift grin crossed her face as she drew her blades, swinging them comfortably in her hands before taking a deep breath, and moving in.

She swiftly sliced downwards, splitting the skull of the closest corpse with a single blow, bringing her other arm in an arcing strike take the reaching arm off the dead man behind before spinning and bringing a blade upwards through the jaw. The steady rhythm and the weight of her blade became the center of her focus as she cut through the stinking shambling figures moving in on her.

She was keenly aware of Steve moving closer and closer towards her from the other side of the small herd, and eventually they stood together, back to back as they cut down the last of the dead.

She was breathing heavily and sticky with gore when they finished, but it felt _good_. This was simple. No treaties or terms. No arguments or tense silences. Just the clean focus of a fight.

She pulled in a heavy breath and turned to Steve. He was watching her with an openness that had been missing for so long.

“What?” she asked, suddenly self-conscious, brushing ineffectively at some bits she didn’t want to identify on her pants.

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen you in the field like this,” was what he finally said.

“You’ve listened in often enough.”

“It’s not the same, I’d forgotten…” he paused for a moment. “You’re good Lewis,” he finished, and he smiled like he hated it.

“Well…yeah,” said Darcy, wiping down her blades and re-sheathing them, “you knew that.”

“I know, I just…” he paused, cleaning his own weapons and then gesturing back to where they had left the last marks.

“Do you think we should let Tess and Eric train to do this?” he said finally.

“I think,” said Darcy firmly, “that the idea of _letting_ those two do anything is a bit of a pipe dream.”

A half smile turned the corner of Steve’s mouth, “They are pretty damn stubborn,” he agreed.

“Wonder who they get that from,” Darcy muttered, but it wasn’t unkind.

“Don’t think either of us have a leg to stand on there,” said Steve gently.

“Yeah,” Darcy agreed, “I suppose so.”

They walked on in silence until they reached their packs. As they shouldered them on, Darcy finally spoke again.

“I think,” she said, not looking at Steve as she buckled her straps, “that we need to let them be their own people. I mean,” she rushed to explain herself as Steve looked up sharply, knowing full well that it wasn’t just Tess and Eric she was talking about, “I want to protect them. Of course I do. But I also trust them. No one else should be making this sort of decision for them. Not even us.”

When she finished, Steve looked at her for a long moment. Finally, he nodded. “Alright, that’s what we’ll tell Hill then. It’s their choice.”

She looked at him in surprise for a moment. “That’s it? You’re not going to fight me on this?”

Steve shrugged as he started walking back towards Sanctuary, Darcy following behind him. They had the battery life to make the hop back, but this was as long as she and Steve had gone without a fight in so long that she didn’t question it.  

After a while, he spoke again, “What will you do? I mean, if Tess and Eric and going to train for drops, Trish is already working comm shifts, and with Jack and Katy…what will you do…without the kids…and…” _without me_. It was unspoken but clear as day.

An odd sort of thrill ran down Darcy’s spine as another piece of the frustrating puzzle of a man in front of her slid into place. Maybe he was afraid, right to his core, of her getting hurt. Of her getting hurt because of him. But she’d been out in the field before, they’d had this _argument_ before.

She thought maybe it was more about letting her down.

When they first met, she’d been so disappointed in him, and looking back maybe her disappointment and her expectations were part of what spurred him step up, to take care of her and the kids. And now the world was wider again, and there were human enemies again, and he had put himself back in a position, _she_ had put him in a position, where lives depended on him making the right choice, him shouldering all the danger himself.

Maybe what Steve was worried about wasn’t what would happen to _him_ if she got hurt. He wasn’t a selfish person, not at his core. No, she thought she was beginning to see that he was worried about what would happen to _her_ if he wasn’t around anymore. Not just apart from her, but _gone_.

And the thought of it took her breath away for a moment, and then it made her _angry_.

“I am more,” she said in a voice as tights as a stretched wire, ready to break, “than those kids. I am more than _you_. And I will keep doing my goddam job.”

She strode away in front of him, refusing to look back.

+

+

By the time Steve and his team were prepared to head south to the Keep, along with Katy and her supplies, Darcy had had some time to think about her conversation with Steve in the woods. There certainly hadn’t been any time to talk with him.

After years of life simply moving forward in a routine of maintenance and self-sufficiency, the Sanctuary was now a frenzy of activity. Teams were being sent out to drop Mac’s black boxes as far and wide as could be managed. Bucky and Hill had sorted out borders and were working on the first official international trade agreement of the post apocalypse. More and more people were being trained for life on the outside, for clearing the herd. And Darcy was starting to build the groundwork of a real government.

Still, as busy as things were, Steve was leaving, and there was no telling when he’d be back. _If_ he’d be back. And despite everything, Darcy wasn’t going to let him go without saying goodbye.

In the end, she caught up with him in the hallway just outside the door to the helipad.

“Steve,” she said, putting an arm on his shoulder and watching as he turned, surprised.

“Darcy,” he started, “I…”

“No,” she stopped him, “I don’t really want to hear what you have to say right now. I’ve heard you tell me it’s over far more times that I ever wanted to already. I just need you to listen, okay?”

Steve swallowed heavily, and nodded at her.

“The world keeps changing,” she said, “and I get that that has to change things. And maybe we don’t fit as well now as we did when the whole world was just the Sanctuary. But the world is _still_ changing Steve. We don’t need you to walk around with your shield and recruit people anymore. The biggest threat turned out to be Bucky Barnes and that seems to be working out okay now and,” she stopped, swallowing against the lump in her throat.

“Look, maybe you really do want me out of your life,” she looked up at him then, and the clear and naked pain in his eyes made her hope, for the first time in a while, that she could get through to him. “I can do that,” she said stoically, “there’s enough space to do that now. But you’re leaving. And god knows when you’ll be back and I know things are all messed up, but I have to, I just…” she swiped angrily at the tears welling up in her eyes, “I never stopped loving you Steve. And I don’t think you stopped loving me either. And I…” she took a breath and steadied herself, “I don’t _need_ you in my life Steve, but I still want you there.”

“Darcy,” he finally cut in with a thick voice, “Of _course_ I didn’t stop loving you. I just…I just want you…You deserve someone who can stay with you, who can give you _everything_ and I…there’s too much out there now…I just _can’t_.”

“You know,” said Darcy, “I’ve been talking to Nat a bit more. About Before. And about Bucky, and about you. We’ve all been pretending like Before doesn’t matter, but it does, doesn’t it?”

Steve was looking at with a laser like focus, but he wasn’t ignoring her, and he wasn’t dismissing what she was saying, so she pressed on.

“I’m starting to understand a lot of the things you’ve never told me. How many people have depended on you and how many people you feel like you have let down. And here’s the thing,” she took a breath, looking up and meeting his eyes, and _willing_ him to understand her. “Ever since you picked us up down in the city, we’ve depended on you. I had such _expectations_ of you, and I was angry when you didn’t meet them. And I’m so sorry Steve. I just… I got better. We got better at knowing each other and working together, but I think…I never really stopped seeing you as a hero, never stopped expecting you to be more, to be _better_. And you always _have_ been Steve, so I never...” she broke off for a moment, biting her lower lip until she tasted blood, but holding back her tears so she could look at him steadily.

“But I get it now, I think,” she said, “you’re not a hero Steve, you’re just a man. A good man, but one who makes mistakes and one who can’t change fate or accident or destiny or whatever decides when bad things happen. And maybe you’ve never been willing to let go of that, and maybe that’s why you’ve decided you’ve got to sacrifice what you want for the greater good, but you’re _wrong._ ”

And he was looking at her not with anger, but with something like hope, so a slow smile crossed her face and she said, “You really aren’t the captain of anything anymore Steve.”

He searched her face for a long, silent moment, and then, all at once, his hands were in her hair and his lips were on hers, and she was clutching at his jacket as she pulled at his lips with blunt teeth, coming together with bruising force, their breath coming in noisy gasps as they sunk into each other.

He only pulled away as the sharp whine of the helicopter rotors spooled up from the other side of the door.

“Darce,” he paused for a moment, running his hand through his hair, a wild expression on his face. “I…I have to go.” and before she could say another word he turned, wrenched open the door, and strode out.

“God dammit Steve,” she muttered as she watched him walk out to the helipad, “you still know how to make an exit like a damn hero.”

+

+

She heard him before she saw him.

She was sitting at the little comm desk that had been set up in a small room just outside of command. Someone, in a fit of whimsy or faith or somewhere in the middle, had tacked a faded and cracked image of the virgin Mary on the door.

To be fair, the mission being run out of that room was certainly a hail Mary play.

In the nearly three months since Steve and his team had left to go south, things at Sanctuary had begun to change at a rapid pace. Thanks to Bucky and his people out east, they now had three working helicopters and a fleet of all-terrain vehicles, along with fuel stores spaced out across the continent. Banner had a small team working on how to get some bigger vehicles to run on arc reactor technology for when the gas ran out.

Communications now stretched all the way across north America and down well into central America. And Mac’s little black boxes were spreading out slowly through the un-reclaimed territory. They’d even started sending a few up attached to weather balloons carried by the ocean air currents. Who knew where they would land really, but trans-Atlantic crossings were still a bit beyond their reach.

The problem was that finding relatively large and relatively organized groups of people sending off radio signals had been easy enough. But there could be hundreds, _thousands_ of people out there on their own, or in small groups, working so hard to hide that they might never be found.

So, the hail Mary play of leaving those little black boxes wherever they could was all they had. And someone was always sitting in that little office, waiting for a call.

Darcy sometimes wondered if they were all deluding themselves. More than three years into this thing, maybe the groups they had found already, the ones that had banded together, was all there was left. But it was peaceful, sitting there by yourself in that quiet little office, watching the comms. So she sat her shift like everyone else.

It was a bit of an escape from the constant and mentally taxing work of trying to hold a very disparate and often desperate population together while working to build some long term structure.

So that’s where she was when Steve came back, his low voice carrying down the hallway.

“Bucky?” Darcy stilled to listen.

“Rogers,” there was a still pause, “didn’t think your team was in until tomorrow.”

“I didn’t think you’d still be here…” said Steve.

“I’m not,” and Darcy could fairly see Bucky’s lopsided grin. She’d grown accustomed to it over the last little while, and it was slowly becoming more and more frequent. “I’ve been and gone. Takes a fair amount of work to keep this damn treaty running, and not all of it can be done over the comms.”

“Katy and Jack?” Steve asked at once.

“Indispensable,” responded Bucky immediately, “and real helpful in a pinch.”

“And you?” asked Steve after a moment, “are you…”

“You worry too much,” Bucky’s voice softened just an inch, “I think I remember that much about you.”

“You been remembering much?” Steve asked.

“Been workin’ on it. Your girl Lewis found a few books. Keeps asking questions. A bit obnoxious about it really.”

She heard Steve’s laugh carry down the hall, “Sounds about right. D’you…d’you know where she is?”

Darcy tensed, but their voices moved off down the hall and she didn’t hear Bucky’s response. She was glad, really. Glad to see Bucky slowly relax into his role as the leader of about half of what remained of the free world, glad to see him remembering more and more about his past, glad to see him and Steve start to figure things out, glad that Steve got to have this one thing _back_ after losing so much.

And glad that she didn’t have to see him yet.

Three months without him had given her some perspective. Her anger had died away some, leaving nothing but a faint twinge every time she thought about it too hard. Understanding had grown in its place, and regret for her part in the distance between them, and a slowly uncurling tendril of hope that it could be fixed.

Things wouldn’t be the same. Things would never be the same, but she had to hope that something new could be built. Wasn’t that what the world was all about these days?

In the end, she was standing on the south wall of the Sanctuary on watch later that night when he found her.

“Hey,” he said quietly as he approached.

Darcy turned to him, a hesitant smile on her face, “You’re not on watch,” she said as he came to lean against the wall next to her, both of them turning out over the still landscape before them.

“So,” she said after a moment, “How long are you here for?”

“Indefinitely,” he said without looking over to her. “They don’t need me down there. The Keep’s better placed to deal with them directly. Plus, I don’t speak Spanish.” he looked over at her with a grin then.

“From what Hill said,” he went on, “seems like I can do more good here helping run command, supervise the teams that are out there.”

“Steve,” Darcy tried after a moment, “that sounds like good news. And yet you sound kinda bummed out about it.”

He let out a sigh, turning his back to the wall and scrubbing his hands over his face. “I just…I haven’t learned a damn thing, have I?”

Darcy kept silent, waiting for him to finish.

“I never really learned to let you make your own choices. I never really learned to trust your judgment. I thought I had changed, I thought that who I was Before was erased, but I never stopped being the goddam man with a plan, did I?” he sounded so utterly defeated that she couldn’t help but reach out a hand and wrap it around his.

“Well,” she said, trying to keep her tone even and not read too much into his changed attitude, “I’ve always known that you were insufferably stubborn Steve.”

He half grinned at her, turning his hand over so he could thread his fingers through hers. “I suppose so,” he said, “just wish it hadn’t taken me three months fighting the undead in unbearable heat to figure it out.”

“What did you figure out?” she couldn’t suppress the little thrill of hope that was crawling up her spine.

Steve paused for a moment before his lips twisted in a dark and self-deprecatory expression. “The thing that really grinds at me is that this is _exactly_ what you predicted.”

“It is?”

“You said that the world didn’t really need Captain America, that all I needed to be was a familiar face.”

“And?”

“You were right,” he dropped her hand and turned back to look out over the wall, “People are staying with us because they get stability and safety and justice. They’re not staying with us because of an idiot in a blue suit.”

“Again,” Darcy tried gently, “all of this seems to be good stuff Steve.”

“I just…I hate that I had to lose you to figure all this out.”

She realized, all at once, that Steve was hanging on to this conversation by a thread.

“Steve,” she breathed, not quite sure what to say next.

“I’m…I’m gonna go.” He pushed away from the wall, “It’s too hard…”

Darcy let out a short, sharp laugh, and then immediately clapped her hand over her mouth. Steve was looking at her with a hurt and bewildered expression.

“Look,” she took a step forward and wrapped her hand around her wrist to prevent his escape, “What I hate the most about what you did is that you trusted your own worst case scenario setting so completely that you didn’t even hear me out.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I just couldn’t even _think_ …” Steve started to ramble until she cut him off with a tug on his wrist.

“But as much as this whole thing has _sucked_ , I do know you Steve. And I know that you had nothing in your heart but good things. Stubborn, short sided and single minded things. But good things.”

She could see by the way he was looking at her, mollified but still so desperately sad, that he was still thinking the worst.

“Look at you,” she couldn’t help but grin, because for the first time in a very long time, she felt like her feet were on solid ground. “You’re doing it again right now. Steve, you _have_ to stop thinking that the worst thing possible is always going to be the truth and the thing that hurts you the most is the right thing to do.”

“Well I haven’t exactly been proved wrong all that often, have I?” his tone was still low and strained, but he was looking right at her now.

“What about Nat and Clint?” she said, taking a step closer to him, “What about Sam? Those were good things. What about leaving me? That was the wrong choice, wasn’t it?”

“I didn’t say I was _never_ wrong,” he said, the ghost of a smile crossing the corner of his mouth, “and I don’t think I have a damned clue about what the right decision is when it comes to you. You’ve always made me crazy, Darce.”

Darcy rolled her eyes, tugging him close enough that she had to look up to see him. “Steven Grant Rogers,” she said in her most severe tone, “I am _trying_ to tell you that you never lost me. I’ve _been_ trying to tell you that since this whole mess first started. But if you’re too goddam self-sacrificing to _do_ something about it, then….”

She saw it, the exact moment that what she was saying penetrated his self-imposed melancholy and really _connected_ and in the next instant, she was crushed against his chest, his hands clutching at her back and his breath coming in short ragged gaps. She slowly soothed her hands across his spine.

“It’s okay Steve,” she said gently, “we’ll be okay.”

“How can you…” he choked out, his breath in her hair.

“We’re partners Steve,” she said quietly, “I just think maybe you forgot that for a little while.”

“I _won’t,_ ” he said, pulling back from her, his hands tight on her shoulder. “Not ever again.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” she said, smiling up at him, her hands settling against the firm slope of his spine as if they had never left.

It was different, rolling up on her toes to kiss him, and yet achingly familiar. The distance between them wasn’t going to disappear overnight. But, as she felt the electricity of being close to him lick through her limbs, as their breath came faster and as she opened her mouth to him, she knew that it would disappear in time and they’d build something stronger because of it.

Because, in the end, Steve was making his choice. He was making it with his teeth against the skin of her neck, with his hips pressings hers against the cold walls, with his hands rucking up her shirt and pressing hot against her back. He was _here_. And she knew full well that he could be out there.

And, as they fell through the door of their room, the door barely closed behind them before her hands were under his shirt and his fingers were clumsy on her belt, she knew that it would be enough. It was everything really. Because in the end, and probably for the first time in his life, Steve had chosen her. He had chosen this life and their half grown children and his own happiness over self-sacrifice and heroism.

So the tears that gathered in her eyes as he pressed into her were joyful, and she smiled at him, free and easy as he rocked against her, unwilling to look away as heat pooled low in her belly and finally burst up her spine in toe curling release.

+

+

Darcy’s alarm went off promptly at 2am.

She blinked blearily and rolled over to turn it off, smiling as Steve’s arm tightened around her waist at her movement.

“Sorry,” she whispered to him, “I’ve got to go sit and watch the bat phone.”

He made a half amused sort of noise behind her.

“S’nice,” he said, as he reluctantly released her, propping himself up on one arm as she dressed.

“Hmmm?” she asked as she pulled her shirt over her head.

“It’s sort of…hopeful, you know?”

She smiled at him and leaned down to kiss him, “Go back to sleep Steve. I’ll be here in the morning.”

She crept to the small office, relieving Clint who was the shift before her.

He looked at her critically for a moment as she took her seat before breaking into a wide grin. “So,” he said jovially, “you’re banging Steve again hey?”

She looked up at him in open mouthed shock.

“Oh come on,” said Clint with a roll of his eyes, “your sex hair and hickeys are not subtle.” He perched in the doorway and smirked as she fruitlessly tried to tame her hair. “Plus,” he added, “you accidentally put on his shirt.”

Darcy looked down to find, to her chagrin, that Clint was quite right.

“Fine,” she said grumpily, “yes. You’re right. Happy?”

And Clint smiled at her, a rare wide and genuine smile, “I really am Darce.” And she couldn’t help but grin broadly back at him. “What changed?” he asked.

“A lot of things,” she said, considering, “but I think mostly it’s that when we found out there were other people alive out there, Steve saw threats. Threats that he didn’t know if he could contain. And now…things are different. Other people mean something else, something better.”

“It is different, isn’t it,” said Clint thoughtfully, “There’s a hell of a lot more to look forward to now than there was a year ago.”

“Yeah,” said Darcy with a smile, “That’s the big difference, I think. Hope.”

And then, with a piercing whine that cut through the night like thunder, the phone rang.


End file.
